Main Campus Provost Rosemary Haggett announced the appointment of Dr. Nina McClelland as the new interim dean for the College of Arts and Sciences on Aug. 13. The new dean will be taking charge of a college that's experienced several months of controversy.
Since UT President Lloyd Jacobs delivered his Second Annual Address on April 2, few of the college's proceedings have gone without debate amongst and between faculty members, students and administrators.
In his speech, Jacobs stressed the importance of "mass-customization" in higher education. He later described "mass-customization" as a mechanism that provides for extreme student centeredness, a principle that acts as the basis of UT's mission. Haggett later expanded upon this notion, describing to an April 29 meeting of the Faculty Senate the opportunities posed by an expanded curriculum, including forms of community engagement such as internships and co-ops.
This type of rethinking of the undergraduate experience at UT as presented in both Jacobs' and Haggett's addresses was echoed in the 10 Year Strategic Plan for Ohio, authored by Ohio's Chancellor of Education Eric Fingerhut. The plan called for 230,000 more Ohioans to graduate within the next ten years, for more graduates to stay in Ohio and for all academic institutions of higher education across Ohio to be formed into a University System of Ohio.
This organization established a relationship that would allow each community college and university to avoid wasting their resources in competition with each other. Each school would choose a unique or specific set of centers of excellence, an academic area that the school does well in and that brings in outside investment and prominence to the school.
Fingerhut's plan suggested that many urban universities might attract investment into scientific and research-intensive programs. Community colleges would continue to offer a low cost alternative to universities, offering technical and professional degrees.
This type of financial support for universities would spur on the research, attracting bright students and professors to the university, students who would then be linked to businesses through internships and who might hire them after graduation. Businesses would be attracted to Ohio as well because of the quality research and intelligent and entrepreneurial graduates, the plan stated.
Some faculty members and students complained that Jacobs and other administrators were misreading Fingerhut's plan, only advancing the STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) disciplines at the expense of the liberal arts. They claimed the plan also calls for a strong liberal arts core for any university in addition to strong STEMM areas.
Betsy Yeary, a senior majoring in theatre and film, for example, stated as much when she spoke to the UT community about the importance of a well-rounded education as part of a roundtable discussion featuring Fingerhut and Jacobs on July 7.
An online petition hosted on the Web site Gopetition.com echoed these complaints. Authored by the Web site user "furzepig," the petition gathered 920 signatures and was presented to Fingerhut during his visit to Toledo.
Jacobs has repeatedly voiced his support for the liberal arts at UT, saying at a July 17 Town Hall meeting that the fine arts, social sciences and humanities are "tremendously important" and "part of our future." He also said he wants the value of every student's degree at UT to improve, not just those in STEMM fields.
UT has since proposed to the chancellor the following centers of excellence: "renewable /sustainable energy," "translational health and bioscience," "environmental monitoring and sustainability, "advanced materials and engineering," "integrative education and the learning environment," and "logistics, distribution and intermodal transportation."
Jacobs has also repeatedly indicated that the only changes he wants to see in UT's CAS are in line with the vision for the college as laid out in "Directions: The University of Toledo." This vision includes "develop[ing] and implement[ing] innovative ways to integrate the knowledge and skills of STEMM … and related disciplines with liberal arts and broader humanistic traditions" as well as "implement[ing] innovative ways to integrate science and technology literacy throughout the curriculum as a pathway to full societal participation."
Much of the discord surrounding the CAS, however, was due to the performance of the former dean of the college, Yueh-Ting Lee.
Lee, who was hired in the summer of 2007 as dean, recommended that groups of departments, such as theatre and film and communication as well as philosophy and history, merge into schools.
While this plan was being developed and advocated in early April, every college within the university was facing a ten percent budget reallocation of financial resources to fund strategic directives for the university. Many CAS faculty members and students worried that the dean's proposal was a haphazardly planned and executed attempt to cut costs for the college.
Ultimately, no mergers occurred, an outcome resulting from administrators listening to the wishes of faculty, according to Jacobs. In addition, no funds were reallocated from the college in the 2008 budget.
According to Scott Scarborough, senior vice president for finance and administration, there were no excessive financial resources that could be removed from the CAS' budget.
Some CAS faculty members were also upset with the dean's performance along with his plans for the college.
In a letter to Haggett, David Davis, former chairman of the Arts and Sciences Council, cited the dean's "lack of credibility," "poor management skills," "bad relations with departmental chairs, his associate deans and the A&S Council," "poor" communication skills, his "infringing on faculty shared governance" and his "not advocating for the college" as the dean's shortcomings.
The Council voted 42 to 7 on April 15 in favor of declaring no confidence in Lee as a dean. Lee remained in his position until July 15, when he resigned and took on another administrative role in the human resources department as the vice president of analysis and assessment.
Though Jacobs and Haggett have supported the dean since the vote of no confidence, causing friction with CAS faculty, an e-mail between the two administrators discussing the fate of Lee surfaced after a student protest group obtained it through a public records request and published it.
In the e-mail, Haggett and Jacobs discussed whether they should "throw [Lee] under the bus," deciding ultimately against it as it would promote the faculty's "bad behavior" as expressed in the vote of no confidence.
Jacobs and Haggett issued an apology for the letters, stating that the e-mail discussion "caused misunderstanding and umbrage among some members of our university family." They apologized for being the cause of that distress.
In order to move beyond these issues facing the CAS, Jacobs proposed during a May 9 meeting with faculty that an outside consulting firm evaluate the college, subsequently making recommendations to the administration. It has been confirmed that the Learning Alliance, a Philadelphia-based firm is contracted to do the assessment.
Lawrence Anderson-Huang, chairman of the Arts and Sciences Council, expressed reserved hope about this process, saying it would run smoothly "as long as people approach it without an intended bias to get rid of the administration or an intended bias to restructure the college and to break it into two pieces."
About the choice for interim dean, who has been charged with providing leadership during the Learning Alliance evaluation process, he said, "I'm willing to go with [the choice of Dr. McClelland], personally. I've heard very good things about her from the chemists. She doesn't have any experience running a college. [though]. That may be a problem. It may not."
Haggett expressed similar hopes about the future of the CAS.
"I'd say we're all interested in moving forward and implementing the university's and the college's strategic plan, creating this shared vision for the college and its future, and having it positioned in the best possible place for its second hundred years," she said.
- Expect more coverage on the new College of Arts and Sciences interim dean, Nina McClelland, in an upcoming issue of the IC.
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