by Members of the

WASHINGTON ADVISORY GROUP

Introduction

Four members of the Washington Advisory Group (Erich Bloch, Robert Frosch, Frank Rhodes and Daniel Tosteson) visited Oakland University (OU) on Wednesday, March 14, at the invitation of President Gary Russi. Prior to that, we had studied the material provided by President Russi, had engaged in a conference call and then requested further backup material, which was delivered to us in Oakland. We held an evening meeting on Tuesday, March 13 and met with members of the university on Wednesday, March 14. The conversations were stimulating, candid and illuminating and we wish to express our appreciation for the wide-ranging and positive discussions which we had.

The Planning Process

OU has reached a crucial point in the long planning process which President Russi initiated. This planning, which began some five years ago, has involved not only leading members of the community, but also many members of the campus. Community leaders, trustees, business executives, faculty, staff, students and alumni-have all contributed to the preliminary plans. These have been reviewed, distilled and refined and have been approved by the board. As a result of this, some 2,300 separate initiatives have been undertaken in order to achieve the objectives embodied in the plans.

We commend the president and his staff for this comprehensive planning effort. It has been remarked that the process of planning is far more valuable than the plans themselves and the process of planning at OU will undoubtedly pay dividends in years ahead in terms of reinforcing the spirit of cooperation and partnership within both the campus community and the larger Oakland community. The overall goals that have been developed are realistic, meaningful and achievable and we congratulate the university leadership on developing them.

We were also impressed by the strong commitment of everyone to OU and by their willingness to invite external comments on their plans.

OU would benefit from meaningful metrics and benchmarks to establish its present scholarly achievements, awards, research support, student satisfaction, student, graduate and professional performance, and other appropriate statistics. Our impression, for example, is that external research funding (state, federal, industrial and other) in science and engineering could be increased significantly.

One item that was discussed by several speakers was the lack of a "by-line." Perhaps OU should experiment with some such phrase as "OU, where the professional best and the liberal greatest enrich each other."

The Washington Advisory Group (WAG) was engaged by the president of OU to advise him and his colleagues about their strategic plan. Specifically, WAG was invited to comment on the relative merits of five options, which OU could pursue to establish a distinctive reputation during the forthcoming decade. The written and verbal presentations of these options, which we reviewed before and during the visit, emphasized how these options could enhance research and graduate education at OU. In contrast, the Strategic Plan 1995-2005 and the exercise leading to the vision of the future of OU, begun in 1997, emphasized OU's goals in undergraduate education. It is our view that it will be more effective to approach the issue of designing and building the distinctive reputation of OU by considering the five options primarily as means for augmenting, enriching and strengthening the undergraduate experience at OU, rather than as primarily agendas for research and graduate education. All five options: performing arts, biomedical science, automotive, health and wellness, and information technology, should and do, of course, involve research and graduate education. But it is their roles, in the undergraduate experience that seem to us to be most likely to build on the strengths of OU. We comment below on each one of these particular initiatives, but we wish before we discuss them to make several more general observations. (See Appendices.)

OU has earned an enviable reputation as a fine regional institution, serving not only students and alumni, but also the wider community, including business, industry and the State of Michigan. The question on which attention is now focused by the president and the OU community is how to move what has been a highly successful regional institution to the "next level."

We observe first that growth provides unique opportunities for institutional development and improvement . The goals that OU has set for itself - an enrollment of 20,000 by the year 2010, of whom 20 percent would be students of color, which would include an increase of 10 percent in full-time students and a significant increase in the graduate program - are desirable and achievable. The planning documents are silent with regard to the financial costs of the various initiatives, but these are clearly of great importance.

Because this growth will offer unusual opportunities for appointing faculty members and garnering other human resources, we believe that great care should be taken in making future faculty appointments. New faculty appointments should be limited to those that are consistent with the overall plan of the university.

The Search for Uniqueness

Although we will propose some new initiatives within the overall framework provided by the planners, we believe that the search by the university for a uniqueness based on distinctive programs is misplaced. Every university is searching for some such distinctive characteristic, but it is, in our experience, a beguiling phantom to expect that it is achievable. Harvard, for example, has no particular distinctive range of programs. Its curriculum and its schools and colleges look remarkably similar to those of Stanford. But it has a distinctive and a distinguished reputation for the areas within which it excels. In the case of Harvard, these are comprehensive, as they are in the case of Stanford. But it would be difficult to distinguish between the two institutions only on the basis of distinctive programs. It is quality and style, as much as substance, that distinguish one from the other.

Similarly, CalTech, which was rated a year ago by U.S. News and World Report as the number one comprehensive research university in the country, has a far more constricted range of programs and course offerings than either Harvard or Stanford. But it focuses superbly on those areas of science and technology which it has chosen to pursue, and it is the quality of its achievements and the excellence of its performance which give it its distinctive reputation.

What is true for private universities is no less true for those that are public. It would be difficult, for example, to distinguish between programs offered by leading public universities - Michigan and Berkeley, for example, share many similarities, although Berkeley has no medical school. What gives significance and the fine reputation to each of them, however, is the distinctive history, style and quality of their various offerings. In short, we believe that distinction is found when an institution performs superbly in achieving its chosen goals and in serving its particular community.

The Undergraduate Experience

We believe, therefore, that OU should aim, not at distinctive programs, but at distinction, and that distinction can best be achieved by harnessing the resources and energy of the faculty to serve its most important constituents. These constituents have long been regarded as the students of the campus. The first item of the university's strategic planning document declares "Oakland University views undergraduate education as central to its mission and will ensure an environment of learning excellence in order to educate a diverse body of students to become productive, contributing members of society." Distinction should be sought in the outstanding quality of the undergraduate experience, both in liberal arts and in first professional degree programs, leavened and informed both by some graduate programs and some high quality research.

It is through this mission, modified and refined appropriately over the next decade that we believe OU can achieve a major increase in public recognition. This is neither to undermine graduate education, nor is it to deny the significance and benefit of both research and creative scholarship. But it is to assert that a diverse and talented undergraduate student body, both part-time and full-time, challenged by outstanding faculty members, committed to the dialogue of education, can produce a series of alumni classes prepared for anything in both their careers and in society and equipped to play leadership roles in both areas.

If that view is accepted, then it becomes important to flesh out what has until now been largely assumed in the overall strategic planning: That is the nature and character of the OU undergraduate experience. We realize, of course, that several commissions are now at work redefining both the bachelor of general studies and the general education programs and that other discussions involve the curriculum for the professional undergraduate schools. Nevertheless, we suggest there should now be an intensive focus on ways in which the OU experience for undergraduates could be made meaningful and so give them a cutting edge in both career opportunities and in society.

With that in mind, we propose a series of initiatives which could, we think, be submitted for faculty review and debate with the notion that, if none of these is acceptable, then the faculty should be charged with producing some viable alternative or, if some are acceptable, then the faculty should review ways in which they might be implemented. Let us suggest half-a-dozen areas which could be developed as distinctive styles and offerings within the framework of general education at OU.

One option might be to offer each incoming freshman a lifelong wellness contract Starting at registration, a student would be invited to enroll in the program, undergoing a health and wellness review, accepting the benefits of regular checkups, and committing herself or himself to a healthy lifestyle. Such students may choose to live in a wellness dorm and pursue together activities designed to foster positive health and wellbeing. In exchange for enrolling in this program, the students would be provided with lifelong access to monitoring, evaluation and ongoing education in health and wellness as provided by the university.
A second possible approach is to adopt a lifelong learning contract with all OU graduates. We now have the capacity, through distance learning and expanded websites, to provide all graduates with access to activities, events and programs on the campus. Such an experience would be dependent on each graduate being not only computer literate, but also computer fluent, and would then guarantee admission to online presentations of lectures, courses, concerts, events, news, updates, career vacancy lists, professional guidance, and perhaps other things. This would be a unique offering which, if made available, would immediately establish OU in a league of its own.
The OU pledge to its students is that it will prepare them for productive careers and lives in a rapidly changing globalized society. For full-time students, each of the four years of enrollment on the campus should provide a distinctive contribution towards this important goal.

Year one might include a focus on ethics, values and traditions. This would be based on the wonderful facilities and talent available through the performing, creative. and fine arts. Themes would be developed which would be shared by all students through a series of common courses, involving seminars, written assignments, dramatic performances, film shows/art exhibits and campus discussion groups. The whole community would then engage in debate on some common theme, which might involve some topics such as justice, responsibility, citizenship, or many other topics.

Year two might involve experience in community, partnership, outreach and service, by building on strong programs that already exist for student participation in community service in the Oakland region, and by engaging those activities in a more direct and related way to course work on the campus. Faculty monitoring and leadership would be essential in this, the second part of the Oakland experience.

Year three might concentrate either on an on-campus research experience, or on study abroad which would have some research component. Most students would, we hope, have the benefit of study in another country, but we recognize that for some students, especially those in engineering or science, the typical sequence of course requirements may make this difficult In such cases, we would advocate an on-campus research experience. In both the international research experience and the on-campus research experience, faculty would employ students as apprentices in ongoing scholarly activities. These would require written reports, active participation, and would be graded and evaluated in the normal way.

Year four might include a corporate, business, or professional internship as part of the student undergraduate experience. This would be the capstone experience for the undergraduate, allowing her or him to have the benefits of first-hand exposure to the professional life in which they will ultimately participate. Members of the local community would act as mentors and perhaps as adjunct faculty members in this, thereby expanding the reach of both students and faculty members.

OU's openness to, and practice of, interdisciplinary connections and work open up some interesting special, possibilities for areas of distinction. There are strong cognitive connections between art, music and mathematics. Given OU's work already going on in studying vision, the strong art and music background, and the apparently fairly broad mathematics department, there is room for very interesting programs and collaborations at OU. Study of mathematics in the arts, the relationships between vision and the visual arts, IP applications in the arts, 'backstage engineering and technology', all might create opportunities to expand the meaning of 'liberal arts' into new directions. This could give a distinct set of new skills to undergraduate and graduate students, and produce an exciting flavor and distinctness to the curriculum and the 'Oakland experience'. To do this would be to build on strength into new directions. It could be experimental and adaptive, require relatively little funding, and build on experience ('adaptive management'), without requiring a single throw of the dice on one decision for the future.

There are possibilities for state-of-the-art courses or seminars on current events:

Mathematics in Art: mathematics, and mathematical objects and structures, in art, music and poetry.

Art in Mathematics, Science and Engineering: imagination and design in mathematics, science, engineering, and IP.

Sight, Vision and Seeing in Art: the biomechanics and neurology of seeing in the visual and performing arts. IP as an Artist's Tool.

The most direct benefits of this program would be for those students who are full- time, rather than those who are part-time. Some comparable programs need, therefore, to be made available to those students who do not have access to full- time residence on the campus. With that in mind, we propose the development of a series of weekend academies which would have the same characteristics as those of year one for on-campus students. They would be thematic, and they would involve both teamwork and critical review, discussion and analysis.

For these students, many of them of mature years, the experience of community service, research experience and professional participation, will be largely fulfilled-by their present activities and earlier experience.

None of this is meant to displace the need for an overall review of the general education curriculum. We take it that such a curriculum would be pursued, not only by selected students - a small select division, such as the honors college - but that a broad spectrum of requirements would also be required of all students graduating from Oakland. With this in mind, we propose for faculty discussion that the curriculum should be so designed that it would meet the following attributes for student experience.

An educated graduate should possess:

1. An openness to others, with the ability to listen, read, observe and analyze with comprehension and to speak and write with clarity and precision.

2. A growing sense of self-confidence and curiosity, with the skills to satisfy both.

3. A sense of proportion and context in the worlds of nature and society.

4. A capacity for delight in the richness and variety of human experience and expression.

5. A degree of intellectual mastery and passion in one chosen area, with an awareness of its assumptions, substance, modes of thought and relationships.

6. A commitment to diversity and responsible citizenship, including respect for and the ability to get along with others.

7. A sense of direction, with the self-discipline, personal values and moral conviction needed to pursue it

If these goals are not acceptable for the faculty, others should be identified and then programs developed to allow students to achieve them.

We wish to add one other comment about the question of general education. The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in its Year 2000 Review of Oakland, required the faculty to articulate dear goals for general education. That is the reason we have offered these suggestions. We regard these proposals as neither finished nor comprehensive, but we hope that they might form the basis for discussion and, if adopted, a framework against which courses could be selected or created that would achieve those particular goals.

Student and Faculty Recruitment

There are other goals for the year 2010 which seem to us to be admirable as well as realistic. Achieving those goals is not, however, automatic and we believe that the competition for bright students, talented faculty and for research support, as well as for outstanding graduate students, will grow more intense as the decade progresses. OU must, therefore, make itself more competitive in each of these, areas, offering not only attractive programs and living and working conditions, but also appropriate levels of salary and scholarship support. This will be an absolute requirement in meeting the ambitious goals that Oakland has set for itself.

Partnerships

Two other general topics seem to us to require detailed exploration. We regard partnership, both with other institutions and with corporations and businesses as essential to achieving OU's overall goal. Most partnerships now developed seem to be beneficial, but it would be important for the university as a whole, to develop an analysis of existing partnerships and a target list for institutions, companies, individuals, foundations and others with whom it wishes to develop new partnerships in the future. The mutual goals, benefits, contributions and responsibilities of the partners should be clearly analyzed, reviewed and formalized, and the cost and duration of the partnerships fully explored. This is especially important, not only within the broad confines of Oakland and Macomb counties, but also in the creation of an R & D park and a business incubator. Neither of these developments will provide automatic success and both will require careful analysis and evaluation.

Capital Campaign

OU has not yet mounted a capital campaign, but we believe that the growing measure of public support and the growing success of the university in a variety of-fields make it appropriate to explore that possibility now. The timing in terms of market conditions would be particularly favorable, for preparation for a campaign involves a quiet phase of 18 months to 2 years. It is important for the president arid the board of trustees to move together to review the possibilities of further development.

Jubilee Professors

One campaign priority should be to make a significant number of stellar new appointments to the faculty. These should be world class individuals and, in view of the upcoming jubilee of the university, they might be named Jubilee Professors. The campaign should include funds to endow these positions at a high level, say, $2 1/2 million each. Such appointments would transform the stature of the university.

Conclusion

We conclude that OU would be unwise to pursue all of the five areas as now defined. We believe, however, that creative and performing arts and biomedical sciences should be pursued largely as proposed, and that health and wellness should be developed in the modified form we have described above. We believe that the whole area of computer sciences should be reviewed from the ground up and that the automotive initiative, if it is pursued, should be redesigned as we have proposed. (See Appendices.).

Our impression is the cost of these programs needs to be determined realistically. It will be high. WAG would be happy to assist in all these areas.

OU is a university that is clearly on the move. From modest beginnings it has now become a major regional university of substantial promise. We believe its best hope for future success and growing recognition lies in harnessing its significant strengths (especially in the arts, biomedical sciences and health and wellness) "In undergraduate education, building strong partnerships with industry, especially the auto .industry, and improving IT and computer science across the board. If these initiatives are followed, together with a new undergraduate program, a successful campaign, and the appointment of jubilee professors, we believe the prospects for the future will be bright.

APPENDIX 1

CULTURAL AND PERFORMING ARTS

One proposed strategic initiative is to greatly expand facilities and programs in the cultural and performing arts. This case was based on a statement that the cultural and performing arts exhibit five very substantial strengths.

� Strong growth in student numbers (337 percent increase in undergraduates since 1993.)
� Strong partnerships with Meadowbrook Theater, Meadowbrook House and Meadowbrook Art Museum.
� Strong faculty commitment.
� Strong community support.
� Strong potential partnerships within the larger artistic community, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrooke Art Museum, the Pontiac Oakland Symphony Orchestra and the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble.

The goal presented to us was to make the combined cultural and performing arts the premier educational performing and creative campus-based partnership in the region, having a strong linkage to undergraduate life, community culture and to other important university interests.

We were impressed by the forcefulness and commitment represented by this presentation. We have, however, two concerns in evaluating their requirements. First, we believe that it has not yet been demonstrated that the proposals, which would be very costly, would be adequately woven into the fabric of undergraduate life, so that they benefit all undergraduates, and not only those who are professional students in the arts.

Second, we are concerned that we were given no details of present faculty strength and we note in the catalog that there are only 14 tenure track appointments to cover these vast areas of the arts. There are many lecturers (38) and another 30 individuals who are applied music instructors, but it seems to us difficult to propose as ambitious a program in the creative and performing arts, as is envisaged, given the modest strength of the full-time tenure track faculty. It will be impossible to mount the proposed increase in graduate programs (see below) without substantial additional full-time faculty appointments.

The requirements that were described to us would involve new performance and rehearsal space, carefully integrated between all the areas of the cultural and performing arts, new partnerships and administrative organization and new degree programs, including a bachelor of fine arts in theater, a master of fine arts in theater, a bachelor of fine arts in dance and a bachelor of arts in studio art.

We believe that these goals are exceedingly ambitious and that much work would be needed to strengthen the faculty in music, fine arts and the performing arts.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in this proposal is to develop the programs in such a way that they would benefit all students. Could the faculty in this area, for example, seek to redefine the traditional meaning of the liberal arts in such a way that they introduce a visual component, rather than an interpretation based only upon text? If this could be done, it would give a uniquely significant characteristic to the OU program, but it would call for the most creative thought concerning the way in which the arts are to be approached. It would require a close partnership between others in the humanities and those in the Department
of Cultural and Performing Arts.

All in all, we are attracted by these proposals, but we regard the strengthening of the faculty as the prerequisite of success in the initiatives that are described.

APPENDIX II

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE

OU is wise to choose biomedical science as a priority. There is no question that discoveries in cell and molecular biology will transform profoundly our understanding of the human situation during the coming decades. This transformation will be crucial not only for medicine and the other health professions (including nursing), but also for ethics, the law, politics, economics, etc. The efforts of OU to plan and build its programs in biomedical science have been vigorous and impressive. The emphasis on collaboration between schools and departments within OU is admirable. The establishment of affiliations with other institutions such as the Eye Institute, Beaumont Hospital and the Henry Ford Hospital, are constructive. The choice of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and disorders of the eye as areas for development are epidemiologically sound.

Commendable as these efforts are, however, the achievements to date have been modest, compared to comparable institutions within Michigan and throughout the nation. The investment that would be necessary to gather a critical mass of scientists conducting biomedical research at OU is probably beyond reach. OU would be much more likely to achieve distinction by creating an imaginative and innovative program of education for all undergraduates in modem human biology. This experience could and should allow undergraduates to participate in biomedical research in laboratories of faculty members at OU, affiliated institutions such as the Eye Institute, Beaumont Hospital or Henry Ford, and at corporate partners in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology institutes. Existing research and graduate programs in these areas should be encouraged.

APPENDIX III

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

OU has a remarkable record of accomplishment in the area of health and wellness for more than a decade. Their epidemiological research in disease prevention is
commendable. The tradition of educating the public about health through radio broadcasts is unique. The idea of establishing wellness contracts with undergraduates is excellent An opportunity that would be unprecedented and enormously constructive would be for OU to foster a drug-free environment for its students and faculty as an essential component of health and wellness. The plan to establish an undergraduate degree in health and wellness is constructive. The theme of health and wellness for all of its students seems timely and feasible for OU.

The health and wellness program might, perhaps, ultimately be spun off as a separate institute, becoming self-supporting, but retaining its essential academic links.

APPENDIX IV

AUTOMOTIVE

We were presented with the concept of building the. university around the theme: Automotive. This meant infusing automotive case histories and problems into everything: automotive design in the teaching of art, automotive problems in the teaching of science and mathematics, automotive plastics in chemistry, road rage and other driver behavioral problems in psychology, automobile policies, politics and economics in political science, auto factory health and safety in nursing, and industrial health and safety in biomedicine, etc. The engineering curriculum would be rebuilt around the automobile. This would be particularly aimed at the graduate programs and research, and would expand around existing work on, e.g., the 21st Century Truck, and the next generation electrical system part of PNGV (Program for the Next Generation of Vehicles.) This sounds like too much of a good thing.

As presented, this would tip the university much too far. Even the engineering graduates should not completely be turned into clones of the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers, e.g., the 'Big Three': GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler) dream engineer, ready to work on current problems immediately, but knowing little else other than automotive. (Such an education would put them IN the box!) While it is useful for many of the engineers to have worked extensively on problems and projects with strong automotive content, and, given its location, it is natural for the school to have a strong automotive 'flavor', it would be unhealthy for 'it to become an 'automotive' school. Some areas (engineering, business IP) might benefit from having a strong automotive specialty available and emphasized, but even these subjects should not be dedicated to automotive.

The automotive industry is likely to be best served by well-educated, and broadly educated, engineers and scientists who are also well acquainted with automotive problems. This will be better than engineers who only know automotive. Some of the engineers will want specifically to be automotive engineers, but for even the engineering department to � specialize only in that subject is likely to be too narrow. It might drive away students with other interests from the locality, without competing satisfactorily for students from other regions. It would be better to provide an opportunity for a good automotive emphasis (major) based on a broad and good education, rather than to put everything for everyone into an automotive mold.

On the other hand, while going 'all the way' with automotive would be too much, an emphasis on, and a graduate specialization in automotive systems engineering would be a useful approach. This could be a useful way to give a 'special flavor' (and a locally important flavor) to the engineering school, and an especial opportunity for undergraduates I aiming at the automotive industry. Given the nature of the local industrial emphasis, education and cases should not be aimed just at the OEMs, but at the automotive suppliers at all levels, leaving plenty of scope in the education and research problem and case work, I for attention to other industries clustered in the area. Lower tier automotive suppliers are not necessarily distinctively automotive in their manufacturing processes and problems.

In order to compete with the existing automotive design schools (artistic design with engineering constraints) a tremendous amount of work over a long period of time would be required. Before committing the university, or even a significant part of the engineering and art curriculum, to a fully automotive' patch, we would advise a careful study of the competing institutions in automotive education, and careful conversations with the industry. Naturally, the availability .of a student selected emphasis or major in this area does not require such caution.

If the automotive engineering and automotive systems engineering flavor were to be encouraged to flow over' into other disciplines (art, performance, business, IP) this could be a good thing, but it should not 'take over' OU.

Perhaps if this theme is to be pursued, a broader emphasis on transportation, rather than automotive studies, might be preferable.

Engineering and Computer Sciences

OU has a solid, ABET-approved engineering curriculum, with good supporting programs in mathematics, the basic sciences, computation and other areas. It has good experience with undergraduate participation in research and should build on that, not only with the wider participation of undergraduates in research, but also with work in the outside business and arts community. An incubator (as proposed might be useful, but OU should also -think about having an 'excubator'. (This may sound like an etymological solecism, but Webster notes that 'excubate' comes from to lie down outside', while 'incubate' comes from to lie down inside'.) By 'excubator', we mean that they should create (or expand) a recognized formal program of having undergraduate (and graduate) students work as part-time technical helpers and advisors in local businesses, etc. In engineering they might focus on businesses that do not have R & D, or much technical strength, but need innovative help. Good students, under faculty guidance, could be very useful in this work. Students from engineering (as part of their 'hands on' project work), from business IP, perhaps from biomedical, might participate. (In engineering such work is sometimes referred to as 'co-op' and can fit under ABET requirements.) It appears that the art and music students already do something like this. This might also be an additional mode of outreach for the wellness program, which is already reaching out

APPENDIX V

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS

While IT represents a perfectly reasonable education track and research area for the business school, it is not, and should not be, a "Center for Research, Education, Dissemination and Incubation of IT." The business school does not have the intellectual underpinning to nurture such an effort and will not be able to attract researchers in computer science or other needed fields to such an organization. There is no doubt that OU needs to become more visible and proficient in IT, but this is not the way to accomplish it

The proposed areas of research, such as Al, Expert Systems, Knowledge Base and Beta Mining, are an assembly of buzzwords without, we must conclude, the necessary deeper analysis of what is to be accomplished, or what it will require to become first-rate in \these areas, and especially how they interact with one another.

There is no doubt that it is an important activity for this and all other universities, and the institution requires a better showing in IT, but the proposed distinguishing program is not the way to achieve this. OU is not as strong as it should be in computer science, and is relatively light in computer engineering. It is not evident from the graduate catalog, or the list of grants, that the university has a viable level of activity in computational science and engineering, or for that matter, the computation area in general. WAG could, if invited, formulate a more comprehensive IT proposal that would provide a program for this initiative, but the present program proposal would not be a wise development.

Memo from the Provost concerning the Washington Advisory Group report.

To: Members of the Academic Council, Department Chairs and Program Directors

From:    Virinder K. Moudgil
             Interim Vice President
                for Academic Affairs and Provost

Subject: Washington Advisory Group Report

Attached [above] is a copy of a report recently released by the Washington Advisory Group. In March of 2001, this group was invited to visit our campus and react to the ideas put forth in the University's Vision 2010 document. The Vision 2010 Document was the culmination of numerous meetings and consultations with all members of the Oakland University Community. A copy of the Vision 2010 University Profile is also included with this memo. As part of the Vision 2010 process we identified five programs of distinction that were chosen to characterize Oakland University as a higher education institution of the future.

As you will see in the report, the Washington Advisory Group has recommended that we not highlight five programs of distinction but instead develop our strengths in providing a distinctive undergraduate education at Oakland University. Some of the key points made in the report are:

Oakland University ahs been continuously involved in comprehensive strategic planning effort.
That planning has been and continues to be a partnership between the campus community and the larger Oakland community.
OU has earned a reputation as a fine regional institution that is poised to move to the next level.
It is not specifically program or curricular differences that differentiate one quality institution from another but rather, the style and quality of the offerings as a whole.
Oakland University's goal should be, not distinctive programs, but the overall distinctiveness of our undergraduate education.

The Washington Advisory Group Report can serve as a guideline for a distinctive undergraduate experience; however, the Vision 2010 University Profile should be a key component in setting the direction for the future of undergraduate education at Oakland.

The Washington Advisory Group Report includes some suggested ways Oakland could move forward (see specifically pp.6-13). These are only suggestions and may or may not be appropriate for our university at this time. As you read these suggestions you should give some thought to ways in which we could develop our own strategies for promoting a distinctive undergraduate experience. Those strategies may differ from department to department and from program to program. The critical message from this report is the recommendation that a distinctive undergraduate education be a defining characteristic of Oakland University.

The Washington Advisory Group Report has been endorsed by the Oakland University Board of Trustees and is being widely shared in the Oakland Community through the Deans and Department Chairs. I ask that you share this information with the members of your faculty. Our response to the Washington Advisory Group Report and our implementation of the Vision 2010 University Profile depends on the input and ideas from everyone on campus to make it a uniquely Oakland initiative.

In the very near future we will be distributing a Request for Proposals geared to developing a distinctive undergraduate education at Oakland University. We are also in the process of securing funding to support faculty and departmental initiatives that would contribute to this goal. It is likely that some departments have already launched initiatives consistent with this objective. We would like to strengthen and further support these efforts. We are also interested in prompting new initiatives that would further our efforts campus wide.

We look forward to your support in the future. As we strengthen the undergraduate experience we will provide a quality education for our students and reshape Oakland University into an institution of distinction with a national and international reputation.

The members of the Washington Advisory Group team:

Frank Rhodes: Former Dean and Provost, University of Michigan; President Emeritus, Cornell University

Erich Bloch: Former Director, National Science Foundation

Daniel Tosteson: Dean Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Robert Frosch: Former Vice President of General Motors.

Oakland University Profile 2010 (original version)

A university of distinction with a visionary undergraduate experience.

Key Elements of the Profile

Strong undergraduate experience/strong academic programs

Oakland University�s central mission will be to provide a high-quality and challenging undergraduate education, including a visionary general education program, that offers undergraduates an enriching and diverse combination of liberal arts, professional education, and cultural and social experiences.
Oakland University will create a learning experience that prepares students for a rapidly changing workplace and to be leaders for the future.
Oakland�s teaching, research and service activities will be enhanced by the integration of new information technologies.

Quality graduate programs

Oakland University will be graduate-intensive, with expanding graduate programs to meet market demands.

Diversity

Oakland will continue to embrace and encourage diversity through programs, faculty, staff, students, partnerships and community outreach.
By participating in diverse programs, and cultural and social experiences, Oakland students will be better prepared to be effective leaders in tomorrow�s workplace and society.

Inspired faculty

�Oakland University�s academic experience will be strengthened by the dedication of its faculty to the teaching-learning process, research, scholarship and creative endeavors.

Quality students

Oakland University will focus on attracting high-quality incoming first-year students to further enhance the educational and social environment of campus.

Research

Oakland will be known for its expertise in applied research that impacts the people of Michigan and beyond.
Oakland will enhance its research expertise through growing external support, and creation of a business incubator, and research and development park.

Community, corporate, government, educational and individual partnerships

Oakland University will be recognized regionally for building collaborative relationships with business, industry, education and government to meet the demands of a highly educated workforce and a high-performance workplace.
Oakland will build relationships with individuals and corporations that support the planned and unplanned needs of the university to ensure continued excellence.

Community outreach

Oakland University will be recognized regionally for quality and responsive community outreach, including educational services, the cultural and performing arts, and sports. This outreach will further enhance the enriching and diverse combination of liberal arts, professional education, and cultural and social experiences for campus.

Growth

Oakland University will be a growing university � in terms of number of students, academic programs, campus and student services, and technological enhancements.
Oakland will retain the best features of a small-campus setting while being large enough to offer a broad array of programs and services.