September 1, 2003 (Revised: September 10, 2003)

Colleagues,

As you begin to organize your activities for the next academic year, I wish to draw your attention to a matter left unresolved when the last academic year came to a close in mid-June -- the fate of the Reorganization, Consolidation, or Elimination of Programs proposal I submitted on your behalf.

You will recall that the CFR Program Identification Committee Report concluded that "the College did not gather and use the information required by the Faculty Code, as specified in its own Users Guide for initiating the RCEP process." Further, the CFR PIC recommended "that the College is not at this time prepared to move to the next stage of the RCEP process."

In her June 6, 2003 email to the CFR faculty, Professor Sandra Silberstein (Chair of the Faculty Senate) stated that,

"... there is no clear procedure for postponing the RCEP process in the absence of data or an incomplete deliberative process. However, an obvious solution does present itself in this instance. We currently find ourselves at the end of an academic year. I have been assured that the College of Forest Resources will assemble necessary data over the summer. Moreover, affected units will be permitted to present additional data and alternate proposals, and the College Council will engage in data-informed deliberation in advance of the next stage. Assuming that this process will be completed by the beginning of Fall Quarter, when a Review Committee begins its work, I am appointing the following members to the CFR-RCEP Review Committee: John Schaufelberger, Architecture; Robert Francis, Oceanography; K. Shivaramakrishnan, Anthropology; Neal Bruce, Economics; a fifth faculty member; a GPSS representative; and Ross Braine (ASUW representative)."

Review, copies of the Dean's Report, The CFR PIC Report and Professor Silberstein's letter are available. They may also be read at this alternate site.

The data Professor Silberstein refers to in her June 6 memo are identified in the CFR RCEP process adopted by the College in February 1999. Over the summer, we have collated all pre-existing data for the period Autumn 1999 - Autumn 2002 for each of these nine measures. In several instances, the data were obtained from the Office of Institutional Studies as we did not maintain the data in the College. The nine performance measures assembled for each existing undergraduate and graduate program track include:

Number of majors and minors
Graduates per year (5 year average)
Initial placement of graduates
5-year graduation rate (Undergraduate programs only)
Undergraduate retention (Undergraduate programs only)
Number of undergraduates involved in research (Undergraduate programs only)
Dollars raised
Number of papers in refereed journals, proceedings, books
Number of public and professional service activities

These measures are correlated with the number of faculty for each program.

A spreadsheet containing a summary of these data for the nine measures is attached.

I request that all faculty review these data in order for the above-described process to continue in a timely manner. Any additional data and alternate proposals must be submitted to Professor Perez-Garcia, Chair EFC prior to September 15, 2003. He will convene the EFC prior to the start of Autumn quarter classes to engage in a data-informed deliberation as specified in Professor Silberstein's memo. The EFC will distribute the results of their deliberations prior to the start of classes. Any desired faculty action will be scheduled to occur at a September 30, 2003 all-college faculty meeting.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

B. Bruce Bare
Dean and Rachel A. Woods Professor


To Return to:Prof Bare's Page, Dean's Office, College of Forest Resources