Cerise Valenzuela MetzgerNearly 200 faculty members attended this week’s hybrid Strategic Plan Town Hall. With limited time and robust engagement from the in-person audience, not all of the online audience questions were asked before the event ended. President Daniele C. Struppa addresses those remaining questions below.
How will new faculty lines for germinal hires be distributed across departments?
Provost Bouchard has outlined a very well-defined plan. Colleges are making requests, and a committee will advise the provost who will make the final decision on distribution.
Do the budget projections account for inflation? How are we adjusting for expected inflation in the next 2-3 years?
Yes, we always account for inflation in our calculations. We are calculating expenses as growing accordingly, to avoid surprises.
I saw the goal of building a PsyD program. Is this tentative, or has a firm decision been made? If firm, has a process and timeline been worked out already? And how might the existing Psychology faculty be involved?
Provost Bouchard may interject, but I believe this is still tentative and subject to approval by usual process. Participation of faculty is to be ensured through the dean as per any other program
How does diversity, equity and inclusion fit into this Strategic Plan? For instance, cluster hires are an important practice in DEI efforts, and that field has developed some excellent best practices for cluster hiring and retention. And maybe you can talk about the path to Hispanic Serving Institution designation. Or for instance, how is our VP in DEI participating in the strategic planning?
The most important portion of diversity, equity and inclusion within the plan has to do with the growth of the endowment. The plan is extremely aggressive on this aspect, and the goal is to generate additional resources for underrepresented students and in particular to help us become a Hispanic Serving Institution. The effort to increase applications will, as well, allow us to seek more students within those communities. As you know, our Faculty Diversity Initiative has led to the hire of several very high-quality black faculty, and we will use some of the lessons learned there as we pursue additional clusters.
For a robust research environment, sponsored research plays a critical role. However, the sponsored research office is struggling with their capacity yet they are not mentioned here. Possibly this falls under the Provost budget?
Yes, it will. The fact that some specific offices are not called out individually does not mean they are left out.
Is there any plan for housing at Rinker?
No.
How about research space at Rinker? We are over the capacity. Where will germinal faculty work when there is no space?
We have plans for the research buildings in Rinker. After the student center and the fitness center, the next investment there will be in the research space.
What approach does Chapman have in mind to recruit grad students in the Humanities, knowing that the percentage of enrollments in Humanities programs have decreased between 25-35% nationwide?
I think this is a question better posed to the dean of Wilkinson. The national decline should be the object of discussion within the college. I do not believe we have plans to build new graduate programs in the humanities within this 5-year plan.
One of the keys to getting better as a school is getting more selective about the faculty we hire. Thus, the “failed search,” when candidates are not good — followed by a successful search and hiring of a high-quality candidate — is a secret weapon. How do we incentivize search committees to overcome their aversion to the failed search and embrace the failed search as a means to hold out for high-quality candidates?
I love this question because I have been preaching this for all my life, since I was a professor in Italy. We must be very selective, both in hiring, but also in tenure and promotion. I do not think we have done that as well as we should. It is not totally within my power, in fact most of the power here lies with faculty. When we hire/retain/promote, we make a statement about ourselves. I think some of the statements we made are not the best. How do we incentivize? Difficult task: Fear and concerns are words I hear more than I would like. One of the ways is to guarantee that the line will not be taken away, and I don’t think we ever betrayed that promise.
Operational question….parking capacity increases to match increased number of people at Chapman?
Not sure. Not in the short run. A new parking option will cost us $30 to $40 million, so it is not high in my priority list.
The issue of faculty retention should be a high priority now (as many colleges are losing faculty at high rates) and will be a major issue after we recruit diverse faculty clusters for these strategic goals. Not to mention that current faculty will ultimately carry the workload of search committees for new hires. Why isn’t faculty retention explicitly addressed in the strategic plan as this will require funding and resources as well?
This is important feedback, and I will discuss with Norma ways to incorporate this. I appreciate you calling this out. Remember, we will spend $8 million a year in additional money, and not all of this will just be hires, so we will have some resources for other needs. The key will be to establish priorities at that level (and this is not done by my office).
Dodge college was only mentioned once in the plan, can you address this? Do you see Dodge as part of the future of the University?
Dodge remains one of our star colleges. It has risen at great levels and of course it remains as a central part of the institution. The fact that it was not mentioned (but COPA was not mentioned either, nor was education, nor was communication, etc.) does not mean it will not receive resources. We have $8 million a year to spend in improvements, and not all of this will be the germinal hires.
