University Strategic Plan (2000-2005)
I. INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY
Mission | The
Strategic Planning Process | Environmental
Changes: 1995-2005
Mission
The overarching goal of Georgia State University is to become
one of the nation’s premiere research universities located
in an urban setting. The University will achieve this goal through
the continual pursuit of excellence in its instructional and strategic
research programs. Georgia State will strive to fulfill the expectations
of the citizens of Georgia by providing undergraduate and graduate
programs of the highest quality in the arts and sciences, business,
education, health and human sciences, law, and policy studies
for traditional and non-traditional students.
Georgia State University’s mission as a research university
in an urban setting is multi-faceted:
- Georgia State is committed to the enhancement of its interdisciplinary
research programs and centers that have achieved national and
international recognition.
- The University, which has the most diverse student population
in the University System of Georgia, is dedicated to undergraduate
programs based on a core curriculum that promotes interdisciplinary,
intercultural, and international perspectives that provide
options that emphasize an urban focus.
- In addition to its primary mission of promoting the intellectual
development of its students, the University's majors and graduate
programs contribute to the economic, educational, social, professional,
and cultural vitality of the city, the state, and the region
in the following ways:
- Through its partnership with the Georgia Research Alliance
in biotechnology, telecommunications, and environmental studies,
the University assists in economic development in the state.
- Through close collaboration with the business and legal community
and programmatic and research efforts in e-commerce, the Robinson
College of Business and the College of Law enhance the economic
development of the state.
- Through a close collaboration between the professional education
faculties in the College of Education and the College of Arts
and Sciences and partner schools in the Atlanta metropolitan
area, the University develops strategies for public education
reform and models for K-12 learning.
- Through the basic and applied research of its social science
and professional faculties, through the research and service
of its students, and through problem solving in community outreach
between these groups and community constituencies, the University
addresses business and economic issues, social and human welfare
issues, especially those of urban settings, and promotes continuing
innovation.
- Through its programs in the fine arts and humanities, Georgia
State contributes to the artistic and cultural vitality of the
region and assists metropolitan Atlanta in achieving its aspiration
to become an increasingly important international city.
The following strategic plan for 2000-2005 outlines a program
for fulfilling Georgia State University’s mission.
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The Strategic Planning Process
The provost convened three groups during Fall 1999 to discuss
a series of questions that probe the current and projected environmental
scan and test the current high priority areas in light of probable
conditions to see if we should add or delete from our current
priorities. The three groups were 1) academic group of 22 faculty;
2) collegial group of 22 chairs and associate deans; and 3) administrative
group of 20 members – the Deans Group supplemented with
representatives from the vice-presidential areas. Each draft version
of the plan was posted on the web so that the community could
comment as the plan was being developed. The Strategic Planning
Subcommittee of the Senate Planning & Development (P&D)
Committee subsequently discussed the plan in Winter 2000. The
subcommittee had representation from various other senate committees
and the colleges so that the community had significant opportunity
for input and comment. A draft document was approved by P&D
and sent to the University Senate for approval.
Significant progress has been made on the 1995 Strategic Plan.
Annual Action Plans and updates on progress are posted. With regard
to strengthening academic programs, an important tangible indicator
was continued solidification of external grant and contract support.
Grant and contract support for scholarship at Georgia State has
been increasing at 15% per year. The University System recognized
Georgia State as one of its four research universities in 1996
and the goal from the 1995 Strategic Plan of qualifying for Carnegie
Research II classification was surpassed in FY 1997. This goal
attainment was aided by opportunities provided by the Georgia
Research Alliance. A university-wide core curriculum that gives
attention to multicultural and interdisciplinary learning was
developed and implemented upon conversion from the quarter system
to the semester system in Fall 1998. A Center for Teaching and
Learning was established in 1996 as a resource for faculty and
graduate teaching assistants who wish to elicit student discovery
and construction of knowledge, enhance their teaching skills,
and increase their use of technology in teaching and learning
practice. In addition, faculty associated with the Center are
involved in the scholarship of teaching and evaluation of university
teaching. A university-wide writing across the curriculum was
implemented and is being expanded to communication across the
curriculum. New academic programs include a Ph.D. in Communication
Studies, a joint Ph.D. in public policy with Georgia Tech, a BA
in African American Studies, an MA in Women’s Studies, and
a BA and Masters of International Business degree in Foreign Languages
and International Business.
The university continues to invest in areas of academic distinctiveness.
Significant progress has been made in the interdisciplinary sciences.
The areas of biotechnology and drug design have been targeted
by the State, through the Georgia Research Alliance, for enhancing
economic development. Two Eminent Scholar chairs have been established
and close collaborative efforts with biotechnology start-up firms
have been developed through our incubator facility. Areas of brain
sciences and health and of neural communication and computation
have recently been recognized through the award of a national
neuroscience and education center, the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.
This center, a collaborative effort with Emory and other universities
in Atlanta, is one of five national centers that were established
in 1999 by the National Science Foundation. Environmental challenges
that threaten the continued economic prosperity of the State and
the health of its citizens are being addressed by efforts of faculty
throughout the University. A School of Policy Studies was created
in 1996 (and named in 1999 for Andrew Young) to provide an organizational
structure to house and coordinate institutional policy-focused
efforts. The new School, together with the move to university-level
of the Gerontology Center, the Center for Sports Medicine, Science,
and Technology, and the Women Studies Institute, represent initiatives
to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Faculty in arts and
sciences and education are working with P-12 educators and members
of the business community toward "Co-Reform" of teacher
preparation programs and the schools in which our graduates work,
stressing better understanding of disciplinary content, the effective
implementation of induction programs, staff development, and Partner
Schools. In telecommunication, a premise of the Georgia Research
Alliance is that technological development must be accompanied
by a matching effort in the content to be communicated. With this
goal in mind, the Digital Arts and Entertainment Laboratory, an
interdisciplinary laboratory that involves faculty from Communication,
Computer Science, and Graphic Design, was developed. Continued
investment in these and other interdisciplinary research programs
are discussed later.
Great strides have been made in the international arena. Since
1995 the university and several colleges have added positions
to advance programs in countries around the world. Many of these
are included in the International
Programs web site. Since 1998, a joint MBA program has been
established with Cairo University. The Robinson College of Business
is also working with selected universities in Cote d'Ivoire, Azerbaijan,
Poland, and South Africa on various business and entrepreneurship
programs. The College of Arts and Sciences has established collaborative
biotechnology initiatives with a number of institutions in Egypt
that are being extended to Israel and Jordan. Its faculty have
conducted professional media training in a number of Middle Eastern
countries. Work to establish a graduate school for West Africa
in Cote d’Ivoire is ongoing, although a coup d'etat in December
1999 will cause this initiative to be reassessed. The College
of Education is involved with universities in Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire,
Egypt, and in a European consortium. The Young School of Policy
Studies is very active in southern Africa in environmental economics
and programs for the disabled as well as in tax and fiscal policy
initiatives in numerous countries. They have an active program
of campus short courses that have been sponsored by international
agencies and home countries, including Russia, China, Jamaica,
the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Palestine. The School also is
attracting graduate students for study in economics under Muskie
and Mandela fellowships. The College of Law has a significant
exchange program with a university in Austria on comparative civil
and common law. The College of Health and Human Sciences has involvement
with some former Soviet states, Cote d'Ivoire, and Israel. At
the undergraduate level, the University utilized semester conversion
to internationalize the core curriculum. An international undergraduate
presence provides every Georgia State student with daily opportunities
to interact with students from other countries in their classes
and in extracurricular activities.
In terms of promoting standards for excellence, assessment of
student learning outcomes is receiving more focus through academic
program review and via a cross disciplinary team effort to
establish General Education learning outcomes. A Student
Advisement Center has been set up to provide all new students
a centralized point of contact for academic advice. Students in
academic difficulty are being aided through an Academic Improvement
Program. The Senate adopted policies pertaining to criteria for
graduate faculty status and to faculty workload expectations under
a semester system. An electronic Faculty
Handbook was developed and is available on the web.
Efforts toward improving the university infrastructure are proceeding
with the design of a new classroom building and purchase of a
site in Fairlie Poplar. The availability of additional classrooms
will help to improve the quality of instructional space throughout
the campus and to add much needed study and meeting spaces. The
Board of Regents accepted a Master
Plan in January 1999. Administrative
and support unit assessment is underway with reviews of the
Provost offices and Human Resources. These assessments should
contribute meaningfully to development of systematic approaches
to institutional decision-making and to systematic improvement
of institutional services. Strategic plans for international
programs, Pullen
Library and Information
Systems & Technology have been developed and approved
by the University Senate. A backbone information network, initiated
in FY 97, will be completed in FY 02. This network affords high-speed
access to global information resources as well as rapid local
communication. The network also delivers the statewide Virtual
Library resources and services, GALILEO
and GIL, which have substantially
increased the quality and quantity of information resources available
to Georgia State University students, staff, and faculty.
Administrative and academic program reviews are two of the ways
in which Georgia State is responding to a climate of increased
accountability. The university is playing a leadership role within
the University System of Georgia. A faculty development-oriented
post-tenure review model was implemented at Georgia State in Spring
1995 and the System adopted the model in Fall 1997. Georgia State
has been selected as one of nine universities to be included as
a case study in an AAHE New Pathways II project. Our academic
program review model was featured by the System in Fall 1999 and
the System is requiring all colleges and universities to have
a regular academic program review process by Fall 2000. Similarly,
leadership in development of workload policies and their integration
with other policies has received recognition through invited presentations
at national meetings and, in June 2000, with the selection of
the College of Arts and Sciences as one of 19 finalists for American
Council on Education's award for Academic Excellence and Cost
Management.
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Environmental Changes: 1995-2005
Georgia State University is in the midst of a major change in
the composition of its undergraduate student body. In 1995 the
university admitted approximately 1,200 first-time freshmen, all
commuters, half of whom were in learning support, and whose average
SAT score was 1000 for regularly admitted students. There were
no residence halls and no HOPE scholarships paying tuition and
fees for students with a high school average of at least B and
who maintain a B average in college. The transformation of the
undergraduate student body is being driven by a University System
of Georgia articulation of entrance requirements that are highest
at the four research universities and are to be fully implemented
in Fall 2001. For Fall 1999, we have enrolled 1800 first-time
freshmen, four of five of whom are supported with the HOPE scholarship,
half of whom live in residence halls, only a handful of whom are
on learning support, and whose average SAT is 1046.
Competition for highly qualified undergraduates is rampant and
taking on new forms. With higher freshman entrance requirements
for regular admission of at least 20 Carnegie Units in academic
courses and a minimum Freshman Index (SAT + 500*HSGPA) of 2500,
Georgia State will need to be competitive for the better high
school graduates in the state. In addition, there is potentially
increased competition for non-traditional students as the University
System develops eCore, the Core curriculum delivered through on-line
courses. This initiative is part of GLOBE
- Georgia Learning On-line for Business and Education. Simultaneously,
there will be increased competition for Masters level students,
especially in business and education, as more providers enter
the Atlanta market both physically and through the electronic
media. One of the great challenges of the next five years will
be the appropriateness of and extent to which we are willing and
able to provide any time, any-place quality education with a much
greater emphasis on reliable support services for students and
faculty.
Standards-based education in K-12 schools represents a powerful
option for school reform due to erosion of the Carnegie Unit and
the common curriculum as well as significant variation in current
grading practices. Numerous local school districts are adopting
standards and, as a result, many students will soon be entering
college expecting a standards-based approach to their courses
and curricula. In addition, there is growing resistance nationally
to the use of SAT in admission decisions. The traditional system
of course credits and grade-point-averages does not guarantee
that transfer students bring sufficient understanding of a subject.
Georgia State is adjusting to the conversion from a quarter calendar
to a semester one that occurred in Fall 1998. This conversion
caused a significant reduction in the number of student credit
hours generated as well as shifts in where credit hours are being
generated. In particular, students signed up for one fewer credit
per semester on average. Part-time students, who in Fall 99 comprise
approximately 45 percent of the student body, have particular
difficulty in scheduling more than two courses per semester.
There has been a shift in faculty composition, especially in
those responsible for core courses. With a rapid increase in the
number of freshmen students, the use of part-time instructors
(PTIs) in core courses increased dramatically from FY 97 to FY
99. This trend was reversed in FY 00 when a large number of PTI
positions were converted to non-tenure track (NTT) positions -
visiting instructors and visiting lecturers. This conversion is
an interim step until we achieve stable enrollments. For Fall
99, PTIs taught 9.7 percent of credit hours compared with 17.7
percent in Fall 98. The percentage of credit hours taught by full-time
faculty increased from 62% in Fall 95 to 71% in Fall 99.
Funding trends have been very positive over the past five years,
especially for faculty and staff salaries that have had average
annual raises of 5.5 percent. The total budget of the university
has risen from $235.8 million in FY 96 to $383.0 million in FY
00; the General Operations budget has increased from $188.7 million
to $267.2 million, a 41.6% increase, in the same time period.
Over this same period, the rate of inflation was about 12 percent;
therefore the University budget grew in real terms by about 30
percent. Support for academic programs and faculty and staff salaries
increased dramatically. The goal of the 1995 strategic plan to
redirect monies so that the proportion of the budget allocated
to academic programs would increase was only marginally realized.
Tuition growth has to remain an important goal, first to return
to the credit-hour generation before semester conversion, and
second to increase both the number of students and average number
of credit hours that they take per term. Before full recovery
from conversion from a quarter calendar to a semester calendar,
there will be a challenge to maintain enrollments and credit hours
(and hence tuition dollars) after the higher 2001 admission requirements
are implemented.
Private giving is increasingly important for publicly assisted
universities. A comprehensive campaign with a goal of $75 million
is underway with a scheduled completion date of December 2000.
As of December 31, 1999, over $70 million has been received or
pledged. Private support has become necessary to secure state
funding to support the academic mission of the University for
buildings. Private support is also crucial for scholarships and
fellowships to attract and retain excellent undergraduate and
graduate students. Similarly, to recruit and retain high quality
faculty, it is increasingly important to have endowed professorships
and chairs.
Higher education is facing a number of major trends including
an emerging global economy that will give rise to a global community
characterized by increased communications across national borders
in education as well as in business, law, government, sciences,
the arts, and entertainment. There has been an enormous increase
in foreign investment in Georgia. One in seven jobs in the U.S.
involve international trade and business.
Technology will penetrate even deeper into our daily lives. Information
increasingly will become the capital of economic activity. The
ability to locate, receive, analyze, and transmit information
in oral, written, and numeric form will be crucial. The rate of
change will accelerate. Those who have learned how to learn are
best equipped to capitalize on such an environment. The Internet
is unlike other technology advances, and is even more important
than the introduction of personal computers. As Business Week
stated in their special issue (Oct. 4, 1999) on The Internet Age:
"The power to navigate the world at the click of a mouse
is a force that is transforming our lives like none before."
In the next five years most of our students will have high-speed
access to the Internet and we need to explicitly factor that into
our strategic planning. Soon we will be enrolling the first generation
of students to take the Internet for granted. These students will
never have known a world without computers. This situation offers
both a great competitive threat and a great potential asset.
Another major trend is increasing demand for accountability on
higher education. This is manifested nationally, with many states
moving to performance-based budgeting. Regional accreditation
agencies and major disciplinary accreditation organizations such
as AACSB and NCATE are placing significant emphasis on student
learning outcomes and use of data gathered to improve processes
and outcomes.
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