July 6, 2017
To the Campus Community;
On behalf of the APASP Taskforce, I hope everyone had a relaxing and invigorating Independence Day. This update is divided into four topics; rubrics and weights, units of analysis, the APASP Pilot, and some responses to specific online feedback we received. Please review each section carefully.
Rubrics and Weights
The taskforce has adopted the rubrics and weights that will be used in our upcoming pilot of the prioritization process. Last week we approved and posted an updated Academic Program Rubric.
Units of Analysis
The Metrics Subcommittee presented a draft list of over 500 hundred units of analysis (approximately 580) to the Taskforce on Thursday. The Taskforce found the prospect of conducting a thorough and accurate prioritization of this many programs and services between October 2 and November 21 to be unfeasible. A campus Communication was sent on Friday, June 30, requesting suggestions for how these units might be streamlined.
In addition, the taskforce decided that our review in the fall will begin with academic programs and administrative services that receive any amount of resources directly from the general fund.
This was not a decision we came to lightly. However, focusing on prioritizing units that rely on the general fund will:
- remove a hundred or more units from the first phase of review;
- address the University’s continuing general fund constraints; and
- ensure the feasibility of completing the first phase of prioritization by November 30.
This means that President Stearns’ prioritization decisions delivered on December 15 will focus solely on programs receiving general fund dollars.
Units that receive no direct general fund dollars (for example, auxiliaries, direct legislative allocations, etc) will still be required to submit prioritization reports on October 2. A second phase of prioritization recommendations for these remaining programs and services will be delivered to the President in January.
APASP Pilot
The APASP Pilot begins next week to test and modify the prioritization process before the official review in the fall. The schedule for the pilot is as follows:
July 11 – Authorship and Data Training, 2-3 PM (Skaggs 336)
July 12 – Authorship and Data Training, 1-2 PM (Skaggs 169)
July 13 – Campus Forum, 1-2:30 PM, (UC Theatre and Streaming on MCAT)
July 14 – Campus Forum, 9-10:30 AM, (UC Theatre and Streaming on MCAT)
July 17-21 – Pilot Unit Reports due by 5 PM on Friday July 21
July 27 – APASP Taskforce meets to evaluate the process (Executive Session)
August 3 – Pilot After-action Analysis
All interested unit leaders are encouraged to volunteer for the authorship training sessions. A brief overview of the data prepared by Institutional Research will be included in these sessions and the same material will be covered at both. Space is limited. Please RSVP for your desired session at presrsvp@umontana.edu. Members of the campus community and the public may observe as space allows.
Participating units will complete their work with the data available during the pilot period with the knowledge that final data will not be ready until after July 31. All data will be available to all units for feedback, including those not participating in the pilot.
The pilot will not evaluate specific programs or services. No participating program or service will gain special advantage or privileges over those that do not participate. Three academic programs and three administrative service units will be chosen at random to test the review process in executive session. No unit will receive feedback on their pilot reports or any indication of how they might ultimately score. All participating units will be required to submit final reports by October 2.
Feedback
We send our thanks to all of members of the campus community who have submitted feedback on the APASP Website. These comments are given careful consideration by taskforce members. The most recent batch included some common questions regarding the process. A few asked if Academic Departments and Dean’s Offices will be reviewed as Administrative Services. The short answer to this question is, yes, they will be. Last Friday we requested feedback on the current draft list of units of analysis, which includes Academic Departments and Colleges as Administrative Services. Please submit feedback if you see opportunities we may have missed to condense units that share resources or administrative functions.
We also received many comments from faculty members concerned that the criteria lack quantifiable metrics to evaluate a unit’s productivity in the area of research and creative scholarship. We have heard these concerns and are considering our response to this important question. We will conduct the pilot using the current version of the criteria. We will then be able to respond more thoroughly in a future campus communication with process revisions drawn from the pilot.
Again, thank you for the high level of engagement with the APASP process this summer. If you have any further questions or feedback please submit them on the web or attend either of the upcoming campus forums on July 13 and 14th.
Sincerely,
John DeBoer, Associate Professor of Theatre