Category I Proposals for the
June 2013 Faculty Senate Meeting
June 13, 2013
Proposal #84096:
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
Proposal #84452:
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
Executive Summary:
With this proposal, the College of Veterinary Medicine seeks to create a
new interdisciplinary degree program in Comparative Health Sciences.
This will be a research program at the multi-species whole-animal level.
The program will start with a single option, Biomedical Sciences, but more
could be added later. As an interdisciplinary program, this will be
administered by the Graduate School.
The MS in Veterinary Science program is being terminated.
Rationale:
This program is complementary to the DVM program in that it is more
research-oriented. It is also complementary to the existing MS and PhD in
Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that market demand for biomedical
scientists will grow “much faster than average”.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
Classes:
MS – 45 credits
PhD – 108 credits
These consist of core + option-specific + blanket.
All courses will be delivered on-campus.
Some new courses will need to be developed.
Cohort:
The graduating cohort size is expected to be 5 MS and 3 PhD.
Budget Impacts: Mostly consists of grad student support. Note that this
means that the budget would scale with cohort size.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
$267,995
$416,640
$565,106
$570,395
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
External Letters of Support:
• Colorado State University
Internal Letters of Support:
• OSU Graduate School
• OSU Molecular and Cellular Biology
• OSU College of Pharmacy
• OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
Issues: There were budget issues – the library reviews were incorrectly
accounted for. That was corrected. There were also some issues with
(what I would call) “vagueness”. Those were clarified and/or corrected.
CC Vote: The Curriculum Council unanimously approved this proposal.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Executive Summary:
This proposal seeks to create the School of Life Sciences under the College
of Science with three departments: Biochemistry and Biophysics,
Microbiology, and Integrative Biology.
There are no changes in majors, degrees, or curricular structure.
Rationale: This is consistent with other creation of Schools within Colleges
at OSU. The COS feels that this is necessary to create a structure to better
manage their operation.
Impacts to Students: The name change will not affect majors, degrees, or
course offerings.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Before:
After:
**
*
** The School Director position will be rotated among the chairs.
* The Curriculum Committee will coordinate and review
curricular changes in the SLS. It will be composed of two
representatives from each department and two from the
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology (in the CAS).
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Budget Impacts:
Minor: One month summer salary for the School Director. Also, letterhead, web
pages, business cards, etc.
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
$21,573
$25,828
$29,854
$34,441
Liaison Letters:
• Cary Green, College of Agricultural Sciences
• Lynda Ciuffetti, Botany and Plant Pathology Department
• Hal Salwasser, College of Forestry
• Mark Abbott, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Andy Blaustein, Environmental Sciences Graduate Program
• Tom Dick, Math Department
• Anita Grunder, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Virginia Lesser, Statistics Department
• Larry Flick, College of Education
• Larry Rodgers, College of Liberal Arts
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
CC Issues:
1. The original proposal called for creating a Zoology Department and
putting the Biology major within that. The CC thought that this was
questionable (some of the Liaisoners also felt the same way). The
CC also felt that it would be better if there was some indication of
the broad, inclusive nature of Biology in the title. This led to a new
name proposed: Department of Integrative Biology.
CC Vote: The Curriculum Council unanimously approved this proposal
with the new name.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline:
The College of Science submitted their SLS Cat I proposal on December 5.
The Curriculum Council first discussed this proposal on March 1.
By coincidence, members of BPP were at that CC meeting to discuss the
report that had been issued from their 10-year Academic Program Review.
Even though it was not the norm, the CC allowed them to stay and register
their objections to the SLS proposal that was to be discussed next.
Members of the College of Science arrived to discuss the proposal.
The CC reviewed the proposal. Their major objection was that “Biology” was
being subsumed into Zoology. This information was given to the COS. The
proposal was sent back. This is not unusual. Most Cat I’s get sent back for
something.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline, cont:
In the meantime, in an effort to better understand, and maybe even resolve, the
conflict between COS and CAS, separate meetings were held with both groups.
In our meetings with BPP, it was stated that what they wanted was a Biology
Program sitting one level below the COS, not a Department sitting under a
School.
In our meetings with COS, they wanted the School-with-Departments structure to
better manage their large and rapidly-growing set of activities.
In our meetings with BPP, we asked them straight-out “Is there a department
name you would find acceptable?” They reiterated that it was the structure that
was the key issue, not the specific name.
In our meetings with COS, they changed the proposal to make the name
“Department of Integrative Biology”, to reflect the importance of Biology and to
reflect the multi-contributor nature of it
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline, cont:
Because this new version of the proposal did nothing to address BPP’s
concerns (remembering that we had been told that the structure was the real
issue), I deemed it unnecessary to return it for additional liaison. Nothing about
the structure had changed.
On May 24, the CC unanimously approved this proposal. (Note: the CC has a
member of the CAS on it, who was at this meeting.)
On June 3, the EC approved this proposal 6-1-1.
On June 7, BPP emailed members of the CC asking them to reconsider the
proposal. The email said a “serious procedural error” had occurred, referring to
BPP not being asked to liaison on the new department name.
On June 7, the CC did re-discuss the proposal, and unanimously passed a
resolution: “After considering Stella Coakley’s memo of June 7, the Curriculum
Council affirms its original vote related to the School of Life Sciences Category
I proposal and decides to take no further action.” (Again, note: that the CC has
a member of the CAS on it, who was at this meeting.)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline, cont:
On June 10, at the request of BPP, the EC also re-discussed the proposal. The
EC declined to pull the proposal from the Faculty Senate agenda.
June 13 – Faculty Senate
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
From http://oregonstate.edu/admin/aa/apaa/academic-programs/curriculum/curricular-policies-and-procedures#94
Most curricular proposals require liaison with other academic units. The purposes of liaison are:
1. To gather information and opinions concerning the propriety and quality of the changes
being proposed.
2. To assure that students (including those outside the department) are not adversely affected
by curricular changes.
3. To reduce duplication of curriculum and enhance complementarity of curriculum within the
university and with other OUS institutions.
Feedback should be solicited from all campus units whose programs or students could be
affected by the proposal and/or whose common subject matter pertains to the subject matter of
the proposal (see list of OSU curriculum contacts). Email is an acceptable form of liaison (see
sample letter or email of liaison).
It is common to include a statement in the cover memo that if no response is received by a
reasonable deadline, the assumption will be that the recipient has no objections.
Copies of liaison letters sent and all replies received should be attached to the proposal when it
is submitted. The proposal should also include a memo addressing any concerns which
surfaced during the liaison process.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
" Ultimately, the importance of biological sciences and the wide
distribution of faculty with expertise in this area at OSU would suggest
that the biology program might be placed at the university level; this
has happened at other institutions. However, we are not proposing that
at this time but rather that the biology major be placed at the School
level and be managed similarly to how it has been in the past.”
-- From Cary Green’s liaison
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
“Integrative Biology”
This term is used to name units at UC Berkeley, UT Austin, University of Illinois, and
the University of South Florida.
The Journal of Integrative and Comparative Biology says:
What is “Integrative Biology”?
We have a tiger by the tail, folks; “integrative biology” suddenly has cachet and significance. Many
biologists now call themselves integrative biologists; academic units in the U.S. are changing their
names to Integrative Biology (it occurred at Berkeley twelve years ago, and the department has
been trying to develop wide-ranging but coherent research and teaching in integrative biology;
departments at Texas, Illinois, and Basel, for example, also are deliberately “integrative biology.”
National Science Foundation program areas are stressing the “integrative” aspects of research in
name and practice; and scientists talk about “integrative” approaches to biodiversity (e.g., Wake,
1995, 1998), to physiology (e.g., Marden et al., 1998), endocrinology and neurobiology (e.g.,
Vaudry et al., 1998), ecology and morphology (e.g., Wainwright and Reilly, 1994), biology
hierarchically (e.g., Wake, 1990; Pennisi, 2000), and even to medicine (e.g., Goldstein, 1997;
Chien, 2000; Halperin and Kamel, 2000; Rudy, 2000), and many other synthetic areas that cross
standard disciplinary boundaries.
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/2/239.full (2013)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
"I have read through this final proposal (as well as the earlier version). I
appreciated our discussions with you and some of your colleagues
during my visits and over the past month. I very much appreciate the
work and the vetting process it has gone through.
This is to show my strong support to move forward with the process
and not delay it any further. I wish you the best with a positive
outcome this month."
-- Dr. Sastry Pantula, incoming Dean of Science
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013
My Summary
BPP teaches 27% of the SCHs in Biology. That needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. For students
to be best served, this needs to continue.
Colleges have the right to re-organize themselves as they see fit in order to best manage what they do.
Faculty Senate has never seen fit to create an “Org Chart Council”. Creating Schools as an organizing
tool is consistent with what others are successfully doing at OSU.
The CC‘s job is to be sure that the students and the major are served. This happened.
Most Cat I’s are sent back for something. When they come back, a decision is made about how much reliaison and re-committee is appropriate. It is not automatically re-looked at by everyone who looked at it
before. That would make no sense.
BPP made it very clear that the structure was the major issue, not the specific name.
Liaisons are designed to make sure conversations happen. They do not guarantee that the eventual
results will be acceptable to everyone.
Thus, the process followed here had no “serious procedural errors” in it. If anything, more effort and
consideration were put into this Cat I than is normal.
The CC voted in favor of this … unanimously … twice.
The EC voted in favor of this … overwhelmingly … twice.
The new Dean of Science supports this, so waiting for him to arrive will make no difference.
IMike
hope
that OSU
we are
all friends
when this is over, and that this is just the first step in a multi-step discussion.
Bailey,
Curriculum
Council
June 13, 2013