My point is simple: I have a hard time understanding why we should go to all this trouble to set a goal that is 95% of parity. Why not at least 100%? In light of the series of articles on the "mediocrity" of the Oregon University System that is running currently in the Oregon, I think a goal of 95% of parity just reinforces the medocrity arguments.

I am also copying a message I sent to John Moseley suggesting there may be ways to generate more revenue without necessarily simply accepting more students and without necessarily compromising program quality or increasing course size or load for faculty. It follows below:

Memo to Provost Moseley from Associate Professor David Conley
December 29, 1999
TOPIC: Some ideas regarding goal of raising U of O faculty pay over five years

I have understood from newspaper articles and discussions with others on campus that you are exploring strategies to raise faculty salaries from sources separate from any state funds or funding increases that are to be available in the future to the U of O. Most of the obvious strategies for generating more funds have immediate drawbacks: they either increase faculty workload by having faculty teach more students, more courses, or otherwise engage in teaching activity to generate more credit hours; or they involve increases in fees, tuition, course requirements, or other methods designed to increase the amount each student pays during their time at the U of O, which tends to drive off students who are price-sensitive. Other creative options to produce on-going revenue streams exist, such as licensing faculty inventions or other intellectual property, increasing the number of endowed chairs, and the like. These strategies, while effective, require significant time and some luck to bring on line and maintain.

I'd like to suggest one other possibility. It is one that would require change, but that might be done in a way that was consistent with the university's mission and did not necessarily increase faculty workload disproportionately. My idea is to use one of the university's key resources, its ability to legitimize student learning and skills, in a broader, more inclusive fashion. I am suggesting we investigate the various ways the university could verify student proficiency in a broad variety of ways, and charge for doing so. I should state at the outset that the initial reaction of some will be that this is a proposal to sell credits. This is not the case at all. The idea here is to build upon the notion of the university as a unique learning community, one in which learning occurs in a variety of ways and is legitimated in a variety of ways, as well. Let me explain specifically what I am recommending.

The first and most obvious form of verifying would be an expanded program of allowing students to demonstrate knowledge and skill in return for credit being awarded or requirements being met. Clearly, we already have policies to allow students to challenge classes or gain credit, but this would be much more than simply having more students taking CLEP tests or having more departments develop tests each time a student challenged a course requirement. Instead of discouraging credit by proficiency demonstration or treating this phenomenon as an exception limited to a small percentage of students, it would be encouraged and built directly into the university's instructional program via independent reading lists, student-organized and led study groups, seminars devoted to preparing to demonstrate proficiency, and, of course, extensive uses of technology to make information more available to students.

In this model, students would prepare for rigorous demonstrations and examinations, in many cases more demanding than those they now must pass in classes they attend. The scoring and grading would be done in ways that maximized efficiency and validity. Standards for passing would be explicit and public. Through this sort of approach, perhaps ten percent more students could be enrolled without increasing faculty or significantly increasing the number of courses. Along these same lines, internships and practica could be greatly expanded. If these experiences were of a high quality, and not of a type available to the student if they were not a student here, the appeal would be great. The idea is to extend internships beyond those that link closely with employment or the transition to employment to virtually every department. In some cases, internships would be completed locally, in others, students would travel to other places to complete them. UO would organize and supervise these experiences, but would do so in a way that was cost-effective, perhaps by making extensive use of alumni.

Parenthetically, this notion also implies a much greater and more visible presence in the Portland region, both to tap the much broader range of internships and to draw more students for whom credit by proficiency demonstration would be an attractive transitional strategy as they prepared to enter the university's Eugene program, having already met some requirements and perhaps being able to reduce their residential stay somewhat. The verifying function could apply to professional schools particularly well. In education, for example, it would be possible to verify teacher skills in an objective, external fashion. Such judgments could lead to the awarding of merit raises or other forms of advancement for teachers. In more and more fields, the emphasis is shifting from classes taken to skills acquired. As more and more options become available for professionals to acquire skills (online courses, conferences, proprietary programs, extension programs, internal training programs), the certification or verification function will become increasingly important. The university can position itself as the legitimate arbiter of knowledge and skill in the broader society. This seems a natural evolution as access to knowledge and skill acquisition spread beyond the boundaries of the campus.

This emphasis on verification can also reshape the residential experience by emphasizing the range of learning experiences available to students and suggesting that students can best benefit from their residence by partaking of a range of learning experiences much broader than formal classes. This type of environment is also more likely to attract independent learners, or at least those with self-discipline to take advantages of opportunities to learn at their own pace. I don't envision students locked in their rooms studying madly for gargantuan multiple-choice tests. Instead, the types of assessments I suggest are large-scale projects, research-related work (which should create new opportunities for undergraduates to work with research faculty and be able to receive credit for doing so based on their understanding of the research, not the hours they put it), demonstrations (as in foreign languages), and a range of field projects. This is not to say that more traditional tests would not have a role, particularly in confirming specific content knowledge. The design, however, would emphasize development, through application, of higher-order thinking skills and more sophisticated knowledge of content areas. I've done my own back-of-the-envelope calculations that suggest to me this strategy could generate significant amounts of additional revenue without incurring concomitant costs. I think it's at least worth consideration at this point in the process. What I've written here is not a well-developed piece, but rather a quick overview. If you have any interest in me developing any of these ideas further, please let me know. In any event, I wish you luck as you pursue your goal of generating more revenue for faculty salary increases.