President Ribeau explains the proposed Higher Education Compact during his State of the University address.

State of the University address
Ribeau advocates for state support, but counsels self-reliance

Ohio is faced with a dilemma, President Ribeau said in his State of the University address Feb. 24. It has a declining economy that needs to move from its old, manufacturing base to a new, knowledge base—and it needs educated workers to accomplish that. But it is also dealing with a Medicaid crisis that is consuming 40 percent of its overall budget and a tax structure that inhibits economic growth.

As a result, the funding needed by higher education to train the many needed, knowledge-based workers is being slashed rather than increased, and Ohio continues to stagnate.

In response to the situation, university presidents, including Ribeau, are proposing a Higher Education Compact that would provide supplemental funds to increase both enrollment and access and help see students through to graduation. The plan would establish a stable budget environment for higher education, allowing colleges and universities—as well as parents—to plan for the future with a predictable base level of funding.

The objective is to bring together higher education, the business community, legislators, alumni and friends to make the compact a reality. “We must get all the significant players around the table,” Ribeau said.

“We need more students going to two- and four-year schools,” he said. “We’re lagging behind our neighboring states. College graduates make more money, pay more taxes, and are generally healthier.”

But simply enrolling more students is not enough. “The goal is to award more baccalaureate degrees,” Ribeau said.

While enrollment in Ohio’s colleges and universities has gone up 17 percent over the last five years, it has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in state support. “Think about this—50,000 students would be approximately the size of the student body at Ohio State University,” the president said. “That means over the last five years we have been providing academic programs and services to 50,000 students who are unfunded.

“That dilutes the budget overall. Now each dollar, instead of covering five students, must cover 10 or even 15 students. Class size grows and instructional quality goes down as faculty don’t have the time to read every paper and make comments. Lab spaces are crowded and services are eroded,” he said.

Worse, because the faculty is stretched so thin, this dilution extends the time to graduation as students cannot get the courses they need to finish their degrees, causing them to have to take on more debt as they remain enrolled for additional semesters, he added.

“The Higher Education Compact would be a significant policy change that would begin to move us in a more positive direction in our state,” he said.

Taking charge of our destiny
Noting that because the state’s formula for funding colleges and universities gives more dollars per student to those with professional programs such as pharmacy, law and engineering, Ribeau said that the “flat funding” called for in Gov. Bob Taft’s budget proposal actually translates into a 5 percent reduction for Bowling Green.

Since he does not realistically expect the situation to change anytime soon, Ribeau said, “we must ask ‘What can we do for ourselves?’”

The answer is we must work toward defining our own future, he said. “We must set clear objectives and then find ways to fund those objectives.”

“We can’t do it with state funding, so we’re going out to find the funding on our own. Like it or not, this is our future. Ten years a trend does make, and I don’t think the state funding is going to come back.”

On the bright side, “We have done just a marvelous job of generating support from our own ‘family’ through the Family Campaign,” he said. “We are unparalleled in our success. Other institutions are always calling our development office to ask them how we do it.

“The root of our success is our commitment. It’s one thing to ask other people to commit their resources to BGSU, but the question is ‘Do you put your resources where your commitment is?’ and we do.”

The University is in the “quiet phase” of its comprehensive campaign, which will be formally launched in April, the president said. Already, many generous gifts have come in to enable the creation of 250 student scholarships, five endowed faculty chairs and significant academic programs such as the Dallas Hamilton Center for Entrepreneurship and the Sebo Endowed Lecture Series, plus the enhancement of our flagship programs such as BGeXperience.

The campaign will also bring about the construction of two new buildings—the Sebo Athletic Center, which will be built entirely with private dollars and will benefit all BGSU athletes, and the Wolfe Center for the Arts, which had received $8.7 million in capital funds from the state in 2002, and now will be moved along with a $1.5 million gift from Mary and Fritz Wolfe of Perrysburg.

But the University can and must do much better in the area of sponsored programs and research, Ribeau said. “Our faculty are doing wonderful work,” he said, “but we need more external funding.” By bringing in more grants, BGSU can buy more equipment and support more graduate assistants, he said. “We need to build upon our intellectual capital and translate that into support for the institution.”

Scholarship of Engagement
Research also ties into the Scholarship of Engagement initiative he announced last August in response to the governor’s Commission on Higher Education and the Economy, the president said. By connecting the resources of the University with the needs of the state, problems can be addressed and solutions found.

This is a “very timely, important initiative that speaks to the heart of what we’ve been doing for many years,” he said. It raises the University’s visibility nationally as well—BGSU has already been invited to participate in high-profile conferences on engagement.

Ribeau said he is pleased with the progress made by the Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement, which has delivered a report with recommendations on how to integrate engagement across the faculty areas of research, teaching and service, and how to integrate it into the reward system.

In response to the task force’s recommendations, Ribeau will take eight “action steps,’ including the appointment of a standards committee to develop means of evaluating, documenting and disseminating quality engagement scholarship. The deans have been charged with developing plans for implementing the scholarship of engagement and with documenting examples of such scholarship within their colleges. An interim coordinator will be appointed to oversee faculty professional development. External funding is being sought to establish several Faculty Fellow positions to allow faculty time to focus on their engagement scholarship. Also, a Service Learning Committee to be chaired by Dr. Bob Midden will be appointed. Engaged scholarship will be integrated into program review, and the president will meet with the Steering Committee of the University Council of Deans, Chairs and Directors to discuss how to incorporate the scholarship of engagement into the recognition and reward system.

However, the president cautioned, not everyone on campus must participate in the scholarship of engagement. Those who, based on their inclination, have a desire and an opportunity will, while others may instead continue with their basic research or other scholarly activities.

Be the change you want to see in the world
In closing, Ribeau returned to some earlier themes of his address. Faced with budgetary uncertainty and challenged by fears of war, poverty and other obstacles, “we must seize our destiny and maintain our plan," he said. We must never abdicate our responsibility to sustain society for years to come, but must revisit our core values, those that make the Academy a unique community: its basis in knowledge and discovery and its valuing of rationality over coercion, he said.

And with everyone’s hectic schedules, “we need fewer meetings and clearer objectives.” This will also allow for more time spent in reflection, and space to get some perspective on what we’re doing, he added.

He also advised that the campus keep in mind that if we are to serve the nation, we must think about our problems collectively, not individually, and maintain an unwavering commitment to honest dialogue.

With challenges looming large, the University must focus on being what we want to be as a University, he said. Quoting Mohandas Gandhi, he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”