November 4, 2011
Posted by gray.15 in Dean's message
Created on November 7, 2011 at 10:32am
And tagged with: Array
Dear Ohio State Mansfield Colleagues,
Before I get into the details of work-related issues having occurred over the last two weeks, I wanted to start this bi-weekly report on a “point of pride.” This past Friday, we crowned our first-ever Ohio State Mansfield Homecoming Queen and King: Emily Johnson and David Yoder. Congratulations to this couple and the rest of the Homecoming Court – Brianna Durnwald, Leah Gesouras, Jamall Marsh, and Keon Willis – for their outstanding representation of our campus!
There were several noteworthy events that have taken place since my last report to the campus. Chief among those was the Ohio State Mansfield Board meeting held last Friday. During that meeting, we saw the Board members signal their full support for numerous improvements to our campus, including a significant capital investment in the Bromfield Information Commons, and matching support offered by the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology in order to construct a new greenhouse. As well, the Board has endorsed our setting aside funds to build relationships with local school districts and families of first generation students, to encourage more student research on our campus, and to advance our distance learning efforts. We are very fortunate to have Board members whose work expertise is applied so readily to the guidance and direction they provide to our campus growth and development.
Yesterday, the inaugural meeting of our Campus Implementation Plan (CIP) committee took place. I am pleased to report that we have finalized the CIP’s membership, which includes faculty, staff, students, and Ohio State Mansfield Board members, and have now charged the committee with a number of tasks. In its beginning work, this committee will be providing feedback on of the latest version of the Regional Campus Cluster Strategic Plan (RCCST), and will be developing descriptive material about the Ohio State Mansfield campus that will be inserted in the RCCST. Please note that I will be providing the campus community with a link to the latest edited version of this document on or about the third week of this month. With the textual descriptions of the Regional Campus Cluster (RCC) now in a near final place, our attention will turn toward those metrics that will help us to measure our progress at both the regional level and on our campus more specifically. Hence, there are a number of high-level metrics that will connect the efforts of the RCC to all of the other units within the university, mid-level metrics that will connect the efforts of each regional campus to the cluster as a whole, and local level metrics that will be developed around the specific needs and desires of the Ohio State Mansfield campus. The CIP committee will play a significant role in shaping these metrics at the local level, of course, and will be responsible for communicating how this work is progressing along the way. My thanks and appreciation go out to Ken Sigler and Jamall Marsh for accepting co-leadership of this committee for the staff and students, as well as my appreciation to John Shuler and Pam Siegenthaler for their service on the committee leadership team as representatives of the Ohio State Mansfield Board (we remain in need of a similar faculty representative on the leadership team of the CIP committee).
Two related meetings that I participated in over the last two weeks also deserve some mention here. I met with Wayne Carlson, the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, in order to discuss a number of issues that impact our campus and the RCC in terms of distance learning issues. Dr. Carlson indicated that there is great interest in having more courses offered through distance learning mechanisms, and believed that this would be an excellent strategy to link the regional campuses together in ways that would broaden the number of upper level courses offered through the RCC. In turn, our campus received a visit from Dolan Evanovich, Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Planning, and Mike Boehm, Vice Provost for Academic and Strategic Planning, in order to discuss our plans to grow enrollment on the Ohio State Mansfield campus. In addition to discussing the increased use of distance learning courses, we also covered topics related to enhanced recruitment activities with schools and families, efforts to attract more transfer students from NCSC, strengthened ties to the 179th Airlift Wing through our “Buckeyes on Base” program, and further development of the number of majors we offer.
All of the activities underway on our campus right now are critical to our strategic planning efforts as we attempt to navigate an increasingly challenging environment. We are attempting to sustain and grow our student enrollment in the face of a predicted 10+% decrease in high school graduates over the next decade. Simply put, as local universities compete for fewer and fewer students in the coming years, only the strongest programs will survive and thrive. We will be one of those campuses to the degree that we can define and market ourselves and our offerings in ways that highlight our uniqueness, our attractiveness, and our affordability.
I have much appreciation for the many faculty, staff, students, board members, and community stakeholders who not only understand where we are at this point in time, but who are rolling up their sleeves and making every effort to ensure that the Ohio State Mansfield campus continues to travel on this path toward eminence. Thank you and GO BUCKS!