Accreditation

Standard Two

PLANNING AND EVALUATION

Description

Planning

In the fall of 2005, Boston University began a structured, systematic, and inclusive strategic planning process led by newly inaugurated President Robert A. Brown. This planning effort engaged faculty, staff, and students at all levels and was ultimately very energizing for the University community. A number of steps have been taken to ensure that participation in strategic planning at Boston University was, and remains, broad-based.

The planning process had several distinct phases, beginning with departmental level plans. Chairs were specifically asked to involve their faculty in the development of departmental plans. For many faculty members, this meant participating in a vigorous discussion about departmental goals, priorities, and metrics, often for the first time. The departmental plans were then synthesized into school- and college-level plans. To ensure inclusiveness, the University Provost, David Campbell, asked deans to describe the process for involving faculty in the generation of their respective plans. Some units went through multiple iterations of planning until there could be no doubt that the development of departmental and school- and college-level plans reflected significant input. School and college plans were shared with deans, administrative leaders, and the Board of Trustees in the spring of 2006.

In May 2006, a Strategic Planning Coordinating Task Force—composed of both faculty and administrators—was convened to review the school and college plans and other relevant materials, in order to identify crosscutting themes. The task force submitted a report to the President in December. Over the next three months, their report, entitled “One BU: A Connected University,” was widely discussed in a variety of venues: at school and college faculty meetings; at meetings of the academic and business leadership; by students, faculty, alumni, and the public via a Web forum; and by the Board of Trustees.

After reviewing and assimilating feedback from each of these constituencies, the President produced a University-wide planning document. A draft version of this document was presented to the Board of Trustees and the Faculty Assembly in late spring for further discussion. In fall 2007, a ten-year strategic plan for Boston University entitled “Choosing to be Great” was approved. This plan articulated ten “commitments,” that is, commitments that members of the Boston University community make to one another and to posterity. In order to fulfill these commitments, the strategic plan identified eight specific, actionable goals:

  • To support and enhance a world-class faculty whose members are dedicated to teaching and engaged in research, scholarship, and their professions.
  • To continue to develop the special undergraduate educational environment that combines our commitment to a liberal arts and sciences education with professional opportunities, while creating flexible educational opportunities to leverage the depth of the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) and our other schools and colleges. To continue our commitment to inclusiveness based on merit for all students, irrespective of race, religion, or economic status, and to raise the financial aid needed to do this.
  • To expand and enhance the College of Arts & Sciences as the core of the University and our undergraduate programs. We are committed to increasing the number of CAS faculty members and expanding and renewing the College’s facilities.
  • To enhance the residential campus and student life experience for our undergraduate students in the special urban environment of Boston.
  • To strengthen scholarship and research throughout the University by support of key disciplinary graduate programs.
  • To enhance our nationally recognized professional schools and colleges, including Medicine, Management, Law, and Fine Arts. Our commitments to Medicine, Law, and Management are key to our prominence as a major urban research university. The College of Fine Arts offers a special opportunity for projecting Boston University on campus, in the city, and around the world.
  • To increase our emphasis on interdisciplinary research and graduate education in order to expand our leadership in important fields and the collaborative atmosphere across our campuses.
  • To continue to foster the engagement of Boston University in the city and the world, through public service and by extending the reach of our educational programs, including both study-abroad opportunities for Boston-based students and the creation of new opportunities for students from around the world to experience a BU education.

By setting specific priorities, the strategic plan realistically acknowledges the financial limitations and other challenges facing Boston University today and looks for ways to build on existing strengths and leverage our defining characteristics. The significance of the title relates to the institution’s past, present, and future: throughout its history, Boston University has chosen to be great, even when resources were constrained and the path forward was not easy or obvious.

Following the approval of “Choosing to be Great,” units and departments were encouraged to review their initial planning documents, looking for alignment with the University-wide strategic plan. The plan provides an incentive for units to more clearly articulate their own goals and encouragement for those goals to dovetail with the mission of Boston University as a whole.

A little over a year after the strategic plan was approved, President Brown organized a leadership retreat in December 2008 to review its progress and to discuss the implications of the recent economic downturn on future implementation of the strategic plan. The results of this discussion are summarized in the Projection subsection.

Evaluation

Given Boston University’s scale as a comprehensive research and teaching institution, the process of evaluating the achievement of our mission and purposes—both inside and out of the classroom—is necessarily complicated and multilayered. In addition to the University’s recently approved mission statement, most individual schools and colleges have unit-specific mission statements as well. Accordingly, a wide range of evaluation methods is utilized.

Boston University relies primarily on its Office of Institutional Research (OIR) for systematic data collection. OIR collects data on strategic indicators (relating to, e.g., enrollment, financial information, student quality) for both BU and peer institutions, as well as data for the budget review process (e.g., tuition, income, and student/faculty ratios) and data useful for making predictions of future trends (e.g., statistics on high school graduates and on economic indicators like the CPI).

Institutional Research maintains sophisticated research and analytical capabilities to track the kinds of detailed information requested by regulatory and licensing entities, and makes this data available to a number of internal and external audiences. OIR provides routine and ad hoc reporting of historic, projected, and/or competitive data on a wide variety of educational objectives and fiscal initiatives key to educational and strategic management, such as:

  • Common Data Set and other statistics for a broad array of surveys, government reporting, and peer comparisons.
  • Student enrollment data with detailed information on demographics, grade distribution, class size, continuation, retention, and completion rates.
  • Historic data and projections of student enrollment, tuition income, and financial aid awards for use in budget planning.
  • Faculty position, workload and salary information (including analyses of data by gender and demographic levels), salary equity issues, and grant support.
  • Data related to BU’s impact on the community, including direct payments and services to the City of Boston and an overview of the economic and social benefits the University brings to Boston and surrounding areas.
  • Information and analysis in the change of property asset values (performed in conjunction with the Office of Financial Affairs). Changes involve investment in research, educational, residential, or other properties owned by BU.

Data and reports prepared by OIR provide reliable information for academic planning and fiscal performance in individual units and across the wider University.

These data are relevant, accurate, and accessible to the appropriate decision makers. Evaluation measures have evolved over many years and reflect the unique academic program, resources, and challenges of the University as a large private research university. While most measures are quantitative, inputs from advisory boards, student evaluations, and alumni feedback provide qualitative and anecdotal information.

All units track common information on enrollment, degree completion, grades, retention, and graduates’ post-degree plans. Each year, this information is compiled by deans in annual reports on their respective schools and colleges. Deans’ reports, together with the annual budget review process, provide the basis for academic planning and decision making.

Academic planning is effected using controls such as teaching assignments, graduate student support, space allocation for labs and research, and program curricula modifications. Faculty members are evaluated by means of an annual merit review process, which takes into account teaching, scholarship, and other professional achievements and contributions. Scholarly productivity is measured in terms of publication, including books, articles in peer-reviewed and other journals, chapters, and abstracts; artistic works and performances; grant activity; and indications of impact and recognition, such as reviews of their work, citations, conference talks, and invited lectures. Teaching performance is based on student evaluations—which involve both numeric assessment of specific capacities (e.g., “Lectures are well organized”) and written comments—and on classroom observation by department chairs. Student evaluations are anonymous but not confidential; faculty members are encouraged to review them and use feedback to improve their teaching performance.

New degree programs are created through a tiered course proposal and review process that begins with individual departments or clusters of faculty engaged in curricular review and assessment. Degree proposals, which are discussed in more detail in STANDARD FOUR: THE ACADEMIC PROGRAM, must proceed through a school- or college-level approval process before being reviewed by the University Council. Programs are not only created; some are reduced or eliminated based on enrollment trends and market demand. The Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers review major University decisions at their regular meetings, and the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee also meets regularly to offer advice on a wide range of University issues.

President Brown has instituted a practice of regularly reviewing and assessing academic units, including schools and colleges, centers and institutes, and departments. Some reviews are composed entirely of scholars and administrators external to Boston University. Recent examples include external peer reviews of the Department of Physics, the School of Education, and the College of Communication. The latter two reviews were prompted by leadership transitions, with external reviews seen as a way to use a transitional period as an opportunity for self-reflection and to enhance the process of searching for and selecting a new dean. The process for composing a team in these instances was consultative, with solicitation of recommendations from faculty members in the department or school under review. The President and University Provost reserved the right to select the chair of each review team.

President Brown and University Provost Campbell have also instituted a review process that utilizes members of the University’s Board of Overseers. Overseers naturally have an interest in the quality of programs at BU but are also able to bring an objective perspective to the review process, as well as valuable skills acquired in business, politics, and other fields. The first such review, of Metropolitan College in the spring of 2008, was conducted by a team composed of members of the Board of Overseers and of Metropolitan College’s own advisory board. A similar review of the College of General Studies was completed in the fall of 2008 and reported to the Board of Overseers at their December 2008 meeting. Overseer-led reviews are an emerging, effective practice at Boston University.

The University also utilizes paid experts to review operations, as in the recent review of information technology operations by an outside consulting firm and the review of Board of Trustees operations by an external consultant.

Deans are expected to include external perspectives as appropriate and available in their area. Because this is a relatively recent requirement, external perspectives vary at present. Most of the professional schools have formal external advisory boards, which visit the schools at least once a year to assess the academic program and graduates’ skills and to provide information about trends in the profession. In other schools and colleges, external perspectives are more informal. External boards are viewed as both planning assets and as a foundation for development efforts. Typically, they include practitioners, alumni, and other interested individuals who visit campus once or twice a year to observe activities and provide review and recommendations.

Appraisal

The President, University Provost, and Executive Vice President have presented regular updates on Boston University’s progress toward the goals stated in the strategic plan. These updates have been communicated to faculty and staff at meetings of various committees including the Council of Deans, University Leadership Group, and Faculty Council, as well as at the semiannual meeting of the faculty at large, the Faculty Assembly. Already, it is possible to identify a number of specific accomplishments. For example:

  • The strategic plan called for increased support and more regular assessment of Boston University’s research efforts and for enhancing the undergraduate experience. Two new upper-level administrative positions have since been created and filled to address these goals: Vice President and Associate Provost for Research (Andrei Ruckenstein) and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education (Victor Coelho).
  • The strategic plan called for the hiring of 100 new tenure-track faculty members over the next ten years in the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS); 20 new faculty members in the School of Management (SMG); and 30 new faculty members whose work crosses disciplinary boundaries. In the first year of the plan, eight new faculty lines were allocated to CAS, which resulted in five new hires. One new faculty member was hired into SMG.
  • The strategic plan called for several capital projects, among them renovations of the College of Fine Arts and the School of Law and construction of a new dormitory for medical students (in each instance, deans are required to raise 50% of the necessary funds and the University will match the other 50%). Renovations are underway at CFA and LAW, and land was recently purchased for the dormitory.

More generally, the plan has provided a rationale for decision making at all levels in terms of both short- and long-term planning and budgeting. Its ten-year timeframe facilitates sensible long-term planning. By articulating a set of institutional goals and outlining strategies to achieve them, the plan has also made possible coordination and consistency across the University and helped ensure the fair treatment of all units.

With strong encouragement from the President, University Provost, and Executive Vice President, budgetary decisions have been examined through the lens of the strategic plan and funding allocated accordingly. In part through these efforts, Boston University had its two best budget years on record in FY 2007 and FY 2008, and the savings have been visibly returned to academic programs and units.

Evaluation at Boston University is extensive and ongoing. Institutional Research maintains a thorough set of Strategic Indicators that allows administrators to compare Boston University’s performance with peer institutions on many aspects of the institutional mission. Comparative data relating to admission and enrollment, faculty and staff, and finances and budget is collected from a number of sources including The Chronicle of Higher Education, College Cost & Financial Aid Handbook, Council for Aid to Education, National Science Foundation, Association of American University Professors, National Center for Education Statistics, and institutions’ annual reports. Strategic Indicators are used to support and inform decision making, planning, and program review at several levels of University management and governance.

Projection

The reinvestment in programs described above has provided further incentive for departments and units to develop activities aligned with the goals of the strategic plan. Boston University is mindful that strategic planning is not a one-time exercise. Because faculty and staff feel that they “own” the plan within their unit or school, and because the relationship between those plans and the goals of the University is transparent, future participation in the planning process is welcomed by all constituencies. This approach to planning demonstrates marked progress from past practice. In a very short time, Boston University has gone from an institution where strategic planning was an opaque process concentrated in the hands of a few to an institution in which input, inclusivity, and transparency in planning are highly valued.

Going forward, Boston University would like to reinvigorate standing committees that have been underused in the past and through them to engage faculty, Trustees, and Overseers more actively in the planning process. The faculty hiring process, overseen by the University Provost, will continue to monitor the state of new hires to ensure that we stay on target for adding the new positions mandated by the plan. The new associate provosts for research and undergraduate education have been charged with instituting regular assessment of existing programs.

We expect that our ability to assess the results of adhering to our plan and to modify it as necessary will improve as time goes by, but we are greatly encouraged by our progress so far. With broad support for the strategic plan, clear goals to help shape decision making, and metrics to gauge progress, Boston University is well positioned to begin a comprehensive fundraising campaign to realize our vision for the institution.

Because the goals articulated in “Choosing to be Great” would be ambitious even in the best of economic times, Boston University has paid close attention to recent financial events and carefully considered how they might affect our strategic plan. At the end of September 2008, when the market turmoil was just beginning, Boston University instituted a hiring freeze for all but essential staff positions. Faculty searches were not affected by the freeze, and have continued as planned during the 2008–09 academic year. A number of colleges and universities have since followed suit, although many have instituted a complete freeze and have put faculty hiring on hold as well.

In December 2008, the President held an all-day retreat for academic and administrative leaders devoted to testing the goals of the strategic plan against the current economic climate. At the retreat, members of the University Leadership Group—a committee composed of both faculty members and senior administrative staff—were encouraged to look for opportunities to enhance academic programs and research and to strengthen connections with alumni and friends, even during uncertain economic times. University leaders were also asked to help identify ways to increase Boston University’s organizational and operational efficiency by clustering administrative services and streamlining operations. Shortly after the holiday break, the President sent a memo to all faculty and staff communicating key information discussed at the retreat. He emphasized the need, above all, to substantially increase the University’s financial aid reserve in order to retain students; discussed steps being taken to fill a shortfall in the FY 2010 budget; and reiterated Boston University’s commitment to maintaining and enhancing the quality of its student body, faculty, and programs now and in the future. Faculty and staff were invited to bring their questions and concerns to an open forum held in January 2009.

Like many other institutions of higher education, Boston University saw a decrease in the size of its endowment during the second half of the calendar year 2008. Fortunately, Boston University is in a strong economic position—which is discussed in more detail in STANDARD NINE: FINANCIAL RESOURCES—that will allow us to continue pursuing the goals of the strategic plan. While the timeline for implementation may need to be adjusted, Boston University’s priorities and goals have not changed.