2022 State of Academic Affairs details university priorities, achievements, financial updates
Photo courtesy of John McTaggart/Oakland University
President Ora Hirsch Pescovitz addressed the Oakland University community on March 30 for the State of Academic Affairs.
President Ora Hirsch Pescovitz and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Britt Rios-Ellis presided over the campus community on March 30 for the 2022 State of Academic Affairs — detailing various initiatives, priorities, strategic investments, finances and funding, and celebrating various members and groups of the campus community exhibiting strength, aspirations, innovations and legacy (SAIL).
To begin, Rios-Ellis outlined the academic affairs mission and vision — one of “inclusivity, academic distinction and preeminent impact,” before heading into the university’s priorities for 2022-23, which include: student success, faculty achievement, shared governance, community engagement and service learning, integrating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), professional development and alternative revenue streams.
“To support student success — we foster transformative learning, high impact practices and distinction in higher education while remaining vigilant regarding diverse ways of learning,” Rios-Ellis said. “Our team is committed to using quantitative and qualitative information to make inclusive, data informed decisions.”
In regard to diversifying and supporting the campus community — where 15% of students, 6.8% of professors, 8.2% of associate professors, 10.4% of assistant professors and 13.3% of instructors or special instructors are underrepresented minorities (URM) — Rios-Ellis detailed various initiatives to provide support, including for faculty: a sense of belonging, visibility of accomplishments and refined promotion and tenure processes, and for students: innovative programs, URM mentoring and tutoring, among others.
Rios-Ellis proceeded to discuss funding, where Oakland University is the least funded of Michigan’s 15 public universities. This was further addressed by Pescovitz later on in the presentation, as OU has the lowest fiscal year equivalent student funding in Michigan, and also relies on tuition revenue more than any other public university in the state.
Although enrollment is down approximately 9% in the current fiscal year and is expected to decrease for at least the next five years, Pescovitz detailed a plan that will allow for a balanced budget.
“Our goal is to strategically balance the budget every year without compromising our mission, our vision, our values and our goals,” Pescovitz said. “[And also] keeping the best interest of our students, faculty, staff and community in mind.”
The strategy includes expenditure reductions of $8.9 million to the base budget, added funds from pandemic reserves, a tuition increase below the Governor’s 5% cap and state allocation (assuming OU receives 70% of Governor Whitmer’s higher education budget).
Rios-Ellis’ portion of the presentation, before Pescovitz stepped in for the President’s update — of which the aforementioned financial update was included in — highlighted the achievements of a plethora of campus individuals and groups.
“The importance of our work now is to leave a strong legacy for students, faculty and staff for generations to come,” Rios-Ellis said.
Celebrated individuals, groups and/or organizations included — but were certainly not limited to — Dr. Ilias Chlolis for his research on dark matter, the Master of Arts in Special Education program, the School of Engineering and Computer Science’s augmented reality center and community leader Justen Daniels.
Further along in the address, Pescovitz detailed OU’s plans moving forward.
”The key to the future is the decisions we’re making today,” she said. “Responding strategically to the challenges and fast-changing higher education landscape — we must be bold, we must be innovative and we must be inspirational.”
As part of this future, OU Focus is an initiative aiming to reimagine OU and take the university to the next level.
The primary agenda of OU Focus is to elevate OU as a steward of place, foster an engaging campus culture and improve financial education to understand the rationale of strategic direction, as mentioned by Pescovitz.
Pescovitz closed out the address with a message of appreciation.
“At the heart of our success and future are the people of Oakland University, the backbone of our beloved campus,” she said. “We greatly value our faculty and staff, and we appreciate all you have done and are doing to support our core — our students.”
Faculty • Apr 17, 2022 at 6:09 PM
Is Oakland University financially broke?
We are writing to report our deepest concern with an incident that occurred on Friday April 15 during Foundational Medical Study’s (FMS) department meeting.
Dr. Douglas Gould the chair of the department of foundational medical studies (FMS) reported to the faculty and staff attending FMS department meeting on Friday April 15 that OU was financially broke. He mentioned this more than once in his remarks and even commented further that “OU is devastatingly broke”.
These comments are in direct contradiction to the information presented at the state of Academic Affairs addresses on March 30 and imply that both the president and provost have been dishonest and misled the OU community.
We are certain that Dr. Gould understands the difference between having a budget deficit (an issue that almost all universities across the country are facing) and being broke. The fact that Dr. Gould chose and chooses to use this fearmongering term of being financially broke is harmful to our morale and trust. This behavior is egregiously unprofessional, manipulative, and creates a toxic work environment. These comments terrorize the faculty, staff, and students who are only seeking stability and hope. We believe that the chair should not be deliberately arousing fear and alarm about the university’s finances and our future.
We believe that Dr. Gould’s disparaging comments aim to discredit both the senior leadership of OU and OU as an institution!
After managing two years of heightened stress and uncertainty with the pandemic – while we increased the amount of our publications, grant applications, etc. (facts that Dr. Gould uses to brag about and to promote himself) – faculty and staff should be supported by the senior leadership of OU. Therefore, we respectfully remind the president and provost that the leadership of the OU has a duty of care to its faculty, staff, and students. For the sake of the well being of the OU community, the president and provost must clarify who is telling the truth about the state of the Oakland University and publicly clarify whether Oakland University is broke as Dr. Gould has been reporting to us.
With great concern,
angry faculty • Apr 26, 2022 at 2:00 PM
This senior “leadership” has already spat in out faces with great pleasure and absolute impunity. Expecting care from this disgraceful clique is beyond ludicrous.
anon • Mar 31, 2022 at 9:06 PM
Blah-blah-blah, as usual. Combine random words from the woke vocabulary with pedagogical babble, add a couple of numbers — and Pescovits’/Rios-Ellis’ speech is ready.
Yousef • Apr 1, 2022 at 9:18 AM
Oakland Post Censors let my comment post.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives are a cancerous infection in higher education. They are racist at their core both to the people they purportedly represent and others. There is a tacit assumption that minorities are incapable of achieving anything on their own accord and will never measure up is what I would call the soft bigotry of low expectations. This leads to a shadow of doubt being cast over every member of the group within the ranks of higher education. Did this individual actually achieve the marks they have or were they a diversity quota?
Furthermore DEI is atheistic, anti-human, and Godless at its core. It assumes human beings and their sacred dignity are second to immutable characteristics or arbitrary declarations of meaningless self-identity. For example, you will be castigated if you are a man and speak an opinion on abortion. If you are not a minority and speak on the unfairness of affirmative action you will be castigated (or Asian. In both these examples the speakers are judged immediately without respect to the merits of their opinions or arguments. They are robbed of any amount of human dignity and reduced to their skin color and sex.
DEI needs to DIE (figuratively).
J • Apr 5, 2022 at 7:08 PM
Man. Atheistic and godless at its core. I like the sound of this. Onward with greater speed on DEI!