Dear Ohio State Mansfield Colleagues,

As you know from my biweekly reports throughout the 2011-2012 academic year to date, the attention of our campus has been centered on our “Big 3” tasks: 1) revising the Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) document; 2) modifying the Pattern of Administration (POA) document; and constructing our Campus Implementation Plan (CIP). During these past two weeks, we are beginning to make some significant headway with all three documents.

The biggest news on the “Big 3” front is that on April 20th I sent our faculty approved APT document to the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA). That’s one document completed, and two more to go! Huge thanks once again go to Norman Jones, who spearheaded the work on this document in partnership with the program coordinators. Once accepted by OAA, this document will go into effect July 1st of this year.

Our campus also experienced significant progress on the other two “Big 3” documents. The main portion of the POA document already has been approved by the Executive Council, and a preliminary meeting on the workload flexibility and organization chart inserts to this document met with general approval by the full faculty in a meeting last week. Led by Faculty President Dawn Kitchen, Heather Tanner, and Carol Freytag, another round of smaller edits currently are being circulated amongst the faculty, and it is hoped that official acceptance of the entire POA document will come very soon.

The CIP committee also has been very busy. On April 20th, I released the draft templates of the CIP to our campus community. The CIP Committee members have worked long and hard on these documents, and it is now up to the campus to provide essential feedback at this critical juncture. Written feedback was due to the sub-committee chairs by today in anticipation of our campus wide meeting that will be held next Friday, May 11th during the common hour in Ovalwood 100. In this upcoming meeting, the sub-committee chairs – Ken Sigler (Teaching and Learning), Terri Fisher (Research and Innovation), Terri Winnick/Donna Hight (Outreach and Engagement), and Carol Freytag (Resource Stewardship) – will report out on the feedback they have received, and our main task will be to resolve any and all final issues before I submit the final version of the CIP to the Provost by May 15th.

This past Thursday, the Regional Campus Cluster Advisory Committee (RCCAC) held its biannual meeting on the Columbus campus. The RCCAC is comprised of the regional deans, board members representing each of the regional campuses (our board representative is John Shuler), as well as one representative of the student body, the staff, the faculty (our own Terri Fisher serves in this capacity), and a president of one of the co-located technical colleges. A great deal of this meeting’s discussion was centered on the outcome of a summit of regional campus board members held the previous week on the Marion campus. In that meeting, a list of future challenges and opportunities was developed by this group; interestingly, that list contained a variety of references to our evolving partnerships with the co-located technical colleges. As a result, the RCCAC decided to invite all of the technical college presidents to its next meeting in October, as well as faculty, staff, and student representatives of the technical colleges. The hope is to bring our partners into direct conversations about these challenges and opportunities that might generate some creative ideas that will augment our collaborative potential.

Last Friday, our campus experienced its first Regional Campus Framework Planning (RCFP) meeting, a process designed to develop an integrated plan that is responsive to the physical needs of our campus in light of our interrelationships with NCSC and the communities that surround us. The RCFP process will include representatives from both the Ohio State Mansfield and North Central State campuses, and will meet once a month over the course of the next six months with representatives of OSU’s Physical Planning and Real Estate (PPARE) office. The meetings will be used to engage in discussions and exercises that will identify campus issues and opportunities, review key data, prioritize needs, develop physical scenarios, and develop financial strategies.

The planning process will result in a set of principles and strategies that will guide future decision making regarding the big issues and opportunities our campus will face over the next 50 years. In related fashion, this process will prioritize a list of our physical needs that reflects our advantages and opportunities while creating financial strategies aimed at identifying the funding resources that can meet our capital needs. Please note that we are seeking to involve both an Ohio State faculty member and an NCSC faculty member in this process, so please let me know ASAP if you are interested!

Also last Friday, our campus was host to representatives of various social service agencies and organizations that serve youth and families throughout Richland County. United Way Director Bob Maxey, Mansfield School Superintendent Dan Freund, and Brady Groves and Becky Smith from the Richland County Foundation also were in attendance in order to help meet the three objectives of this meeting. First, we wanted to provide an update on the Leadership Certificate Program we will be launching this Autumn Semester in partnership with the OSU College of Social Work (thanks to Mary Jo Hawk for her hard work on this initiative!). Second, we wished to provide information about the soon-to-be hired Family Engagement Specialist who will be focused on increasing the college aspirations of youth throughout Richland County, with special attention paid to first generation students. Third and finally, we wanted to generate support for our upcoming three days of dialogue on May 22, 23, and 24 that will examine how our campus, the Mansfield School District, and the greater Mansfield community can create a lasting partnership that focuses on healthy youth development (you will be hearing more about this “Beginning Anew” dialogue in the days and weeks ahead). I am happy to report that there was great enthusiasm expressed for this sort of intiative, and all members present pledged their support for and participation in the May dialogue. In this last regard, please note that an invitation went out last week regarding the May 22nd lecture that Dr. David Blumenkrantz will be providing to the Ohio State Mansfield campus entitled “The Initiation of Scholars: A Rites of Passage Approach to Academic Performance.” A reception will follow for faculty and staff, to be held in Riedl Hall.

Last week was a busy one, but so was this week! On Monday, we were visited by Fred Fotis, Assistant Vice President for Student Life, and Zia Ahmed, Senior Director of Dining Services, in order to discuss possible partnerships that might increase food service options on our campus. This meeting represents the very beginning of a conversation about dining services that will be further expanded in the weeks and months ahead. Once we have a better idea about our options, we will be asking the campus community to weigh in on this matter.

On Tuesday, we hosted a meeting with David Williams, Dean of the Ohio State College of Engineering, and representatives of local manufacturors who have a vested interest in increased opportunities for students who are interested in engineering programs. I was particularly pleased to have watched as advisor Lyndsey Anderson and Dr. Wenfei Li called upon a number of our First Year Engineering Program students to introduce themselves and talk about their experiences in the program. The students who attended this function included: Forest Kunecke (Mansfield), Steven Zhang (Cleveland), Kaitlyn Mullins (Medina), Michael Jarrell (Medina), Evan Wurm (Bloomfield), Ryan Phelps (Perry) and Valerie Yoder (Ashland). Thanks so much for representing our campus in such fine fashion!

And finally, today I had the pleasure of hosting my quarterly meeting with the Ohio State Mansfield Student Advisory Group. This assembly of students, who have been meeting regularly with me since I first took this position last year, continues to bring much needed energy to the table with regard to how we as a campus can continue to “place students first” in all that we do. Currently, this group has agreed to advise me on some possibilities regarding the recognition and promotion of our student organizations. I am truly blessed to have such dedicated and enthusiastic students providing me with such guidance and direction from the viewpoint of our student body.

Dear Ohio State Mansfield Colleagues,

I want to begin this communication with an invitation to the campus community to take in the upcoming production Of Mice and Men on the Ohio State Mansfield campus. Running from May 3rd through May 6th, the offering of this entertainment spectacle is only the latest of many cultural events that our campus offers up to faculty, staff, students, and our at-large community of performing arts patrons. I proudly note as well that the Children's Theatre Foundation is partnering with our Theatre Department to bring school groups to our campus for a Friday morning matinee. Please find the time to enjoy and support this production!

I began my previous biweekly report with the recognition that three major committees – APT (Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure), POA (Pattern of Administration), and CIP (Campus Implementation Plan) – were reaching the final stages of preparing documents that soon will be shared with the entire campus community. Due to the close proximity of these documents’ releases, I had shared some “food for thought” regarding our enrollment and graduation trends over the last decade. This week, I wanted to provide some assistance for our campus community regarding employment trends over this time period (or at least since 2005, the point in time that hiring data was most accessible). I also wanted to provide some sort of context in terms of what has been occurring on the other three regional campuses at the same time.

Since my arrival on campus eighteen months ago, I have heard anecdotal statements that staff hiring has skyrocketed while faculty employment has drastically declined in the last decade. It also has been suggested that the ratio of staff to faculty employees on the Mansfield campus is far more “imbalanced” than the other regional campuses. I thought this might be an appropriate time to look at some numbers to help guide and direct our conversation about these related topics. Hence, I asked Cathy Stimpert, our Human Resources Officer, to obtain some statistics for me in order to share the landscape of employment on our campus. Thank you Cathy for your quick and able assistance on this project!



What are the important points of reference if we look at employee type since 2005 from the graphs1 above? In essence, the following trends may be most notable:

•  Staff employment: The Mansfield & Newark staff employment numbers have seen essentially no change (1% increase) over this time period, whereas Marion staff employment has increased substantially (9% increase) & Lima staff employment has decreased substantially (9% decrease) over the same time period.

•  Tenure track employment: The Mansfield tenure track faculty employment number has decreased more (8% decrease) in comparison to the other regional campuses (average 2-3% decreases).

•  Non-tenure track employment: The Mansfield TNT faculty has increased less (6%) in comparison to Lima (12% increase) and more in comparison to Newark (2% increase). Marion, in contrast, has experienced a 7% decrease in TNT faculty over the same time period.

Overall, the total employment on the Mansfield and Lima campuses have grown by a small amount over this time period (net gain of 8 and 10 employees, respectively), whereas there were big increases in total employment numbers on the Marion (26) and Newark (38) campuses.

You will recall from the Dean’s biweekly report of two weeks ago that our overall enrollment last year (n = 1,368) reflected a 6% decline from 10 years ago (n = 1,451) on the Mansfield campus. Everything else held constant, it would be expected that our campus would have experienced a small net loss in employment of between 6-8% over this time period. However, a loss of that modest magnitude was found only in tenure track employment (8% decrease). Over that time period, our non-tenure track faculty had increased by almost that same amount (6% increase). In the meantime, staff employment was basically static (1% increase).

How do we make sense of all this? On the one hand, it may very well be the case that our campus will continue to have to “right size” itself over the course of the coming year that would be reflected in an overall drop in employment numbers that would match any further enrollment decrease. At the same time, however, our campus might also have to be strategic in its investments for the future, which would mean hiring additional employees who would be most likely to provide the assistance we would need to reverse the enrollment numbers in our favor. In essence, I am pointing to the need for us to make some “educated bets” on certain new hires that would most likely be able to ignite or otherwise deliver essential support services to those students who would comprise an expanded enrollment pool.

Please note that our Campus Implementation Plan in particular will be chock full of ideas about how to expand our enrollment in the next five years. As a result, our initial planning activities for the 2012-2013 academic year budget largely will be an exercise in shifting scarce resources to those initiatives most likely to expand (or support) student enrollment. So much so, in fact, that we all might as well get comfortable with the mantra I will be saying over the next several months: “If it ain’t much about enrollment growth, it ain’t getting much support.”

Dean Gavazzi is now on Twitter! Login or sign up for Twitter now to follow him (@StephenMGavazzi).

Dear Ohio State Mansfield Colleagues,

I begin my report with the recognition that three major committees – APT (Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure), POA (Pattern of Administration), and CIP (Campus Implementation Plan) – are reaching the final stages of preparing documents that soon will be shared with the entire campus community. I am extremely proud (and relieved!) to say that we are on target to hit all of our deadlines.


Because these three documents are going to drive conversations about where we are going as a campus, I thought it might behoove us to remember where we have been. Therefore, this is the first in a series of special biweekly reports that helps us to “look back” as we “look forward.” This particular special report is meant to supply the campus with some food for thought regarding our enrollment and graduation trends over the last decade.

The first graph that you see above depicts the fact that our overall enrollment last year (n = 1,368) reflects a 6% decline from 10 years ago (n = 1,451). In fact, last year was the lowest enrollment of the decade; our best two years were 2003 (n = 1619) and 2009 (n = 1,608), years that represent approximately 15% more students in comparison to last year’s enrollment. The core question that I would like our campus to ponder is this: what factors are contributing to this decline?

Interestingly, when we look at race/ethnicity, we see that the number of white students has tended to reflect the overall increases and declines in enrollment over the decade. In stark contrast, however, the number of students of color has grown appreciably from ten years ago (n = 99) to last year (n = 163), or about a 40% jump in enrollment.

What about our campus change numbers? It is clear that we increasingly have served as the “front door” for students who are interested in completing their education on the Columbus campus. The numbers from a decade ago (n = 136) as compared to last year (n = 251) reflects close to a 50% increase in the number of students we are supplying with a first year experience.

In comparison, the number of students who are staying with us to complete their graduation requirements has declined throughout this time period. The first year in which we have data available for this figure is 2003, where we had 90 graduates, as compared to last year’s 78 graduates, reflecting a 14% drop in degree completion students.

This begs another question: Who are our graduates by degree program, and what have the trends been in our four-year programs over this period of time?

Over the last nine years, we can see that Education has led the pack with 310 graduates, followed by a significant drop to English (n = 136) and Psychology (n = 126), followed by another significant drop to History (n = 68), Business (n = 62), and Sociology/Criminology (n = 39). That is not the whole story, however. The chart below displays trend lines over this same period of time. While Education is the top degree producing program during this entire period, its numbers have fallen over 25% across time. In contrast, English has experienced 100% growth over this period of time, literally doubling its graduation numbers. Although there has been some marked fluctuation from year to year, Psychology, Business, History, and Sociology have remained relatively steady when taken as an average over this time period.




So what are we to make of all this? Here are some questions to consider:


If you are one of those “the glass is half empty” people, what mistakes have we been making in the last couple of years (in addition to getting hammered by external factors like the economy and the migration of the nursing program to Ashland University) concerning recruitment?


If you are one of those “the glass is half full” people, what were we doing right in years like 2003 and 2009 (again holding all other external variables constant)?
Beyond moral and ethical considerations (important as they are in their own right), is the recruitment and retention of students of color a growth area for our campus from a business standpoint? And if so, what does that mean in terms of the redirection of resources?


What does it mean to our campus to know that we are increasingly sending more and more students to Columbus as part of the campus change process? Is this a growth area for us as well, and if so what kinds of resources do we need to redirect? Or alternatively, is this area going to grow regardless of what we do, especially given the increasingly selective admissions criteria related to first choice admission on the Columbus campus? And if that is the case, then what kinds of decisions might this trigger about the way we do business on campus (recruitment, advising, programming, etc.)?


What does the graduation data – both overall numbers and trends – tell us about how we want to spend (and possibly reallocate) resources? Coupled with other data (for instance, on credit hour generation), this may raise some related (if prickly) questions, including: Does the use of such data drive decisions about new hires? I include the related question of whether or not the use of such data can help to balance the need for replacement faculty with the hiring of destination program faculty. Does the use of such data drive decisions related to course releases?


I am fairly certain that these questions are only scratching the surface. I am interested in hearing what else the information provided here about enrollment and graduation trends sparks for you that have not been addressed in this report. I look forward to hearing from all of you in the days and weeks ahead!