Where Do We Stand at BigU With Respect to Research?

Selections from the Minutes of BigU’s Research Committee

“Is this a time to be talking about getting into the top three? When units cannot maintain their research capacity, how can they get to the top three? There is little to suggest that the University is on an upward trajectory.”

Minutes

Senate Research Committee

Monday, October 8, 2007

12:30 - 2:15

238A Morrill Hall

Present: Dan Dahlberg (chair), Linda Bearinger, Jerry Cohen, Donald Dengel, Steven Gantt, Tryphon Georgiou, Shikha Jain, Paul Johnson, Michelle Lamere, Frances Lawrenz, Jennifer Linde, Virginia Seybold, Charles Spetland, Joel Slaton, Barbara VanDrasek, Sanford Weisberg, Jean Witson

Guests: Professors Tim Ebner (Neuroscience), Wayne Gladfelter (Chemistry), John Sullivan (Political Science), and Kate VandenBosch (Plant Biology)

“Professor Ebner said that the metric for rankings in the Medical School is NIH funding. He concurred with the point about the relationship between department size and ranking: 75% of the ability to get funding depends on the size of the faculty. His department is highly-ranked but it is also one of the biggest. What would it take to move up in the rankings? That is a tough question; more research funding would help, but NIH is ‘in a recession’ right now.”

“Professor Johnson said it seems odd that the University aspires to be in the top three and yet does not seem to think creatively about what to do if department rankings are declining. How can the University be in the top three unless a lot of its departments are in the top 10? That seems to be a contradiction. To be in the top three requires resources, but departments are not staying in the top ten. He said he felt he was missing something; the path to the top three must not mean providing resources to departments to be among the best. Professor Ebner agreed; he reported that since 1999 the Medical School has lost 59 tenure-track faculty positions (it gained a lot of clinical faculty, however). They cannot gain in the rankings if they are losing tenured faculty. One analysis has suggested that for the Medical School to be in the top three, it would have to hire the number of faculty equivalent to the current CLA. “

Professor Sullivan commented that this all sounded familiar. His department also hired a large number of assistant professors; it has now been given permission to recruit some senior faculty—but they cannot match salaries. The top political scientists now make $200,000 and the Minnesota department is nowhere near able to compete. Salaries in Economics have skyrocketed even faster. For the first time, salary has become an issue for us, Professor Sullivan said. It is a question of retaining all their young faculty; there are a lot of McKnight Land Grant Professors now teaching elsewhere. "We are competitive in salaries for young faculty, moderately competitive in the middle range, and not at all competitive at the top."

“Professor Dahlberg said that Physics has about a 50% retention rate. Professor Gladfelter related that Chemistry lost two of nine retention cases, one of which they did not seek to match. Professor VandenBosch said her department is in the process of losing a retention case and lost another individual several years ago who is now in the National Academy. Professor Sullivan said his department had nine retention cases in the last three years and lost five of them; people left for various reasons but they received phenomenal offers. Professor Bearinger reported that her school lost two faculty at the point of tenure, both of whom had RO1 grants, because they could not compete on salaries.”

“Professor Dahlberg asked the guests if they were able successfully to recruit at the senior faculty level. He said he hears often that Minnesota is a great place to steal very good junior and midcareer faculty and is curious if we can replace them. Professor Weisberg said that two of their last four hires were senior associate professors. Professor VandenBosch reported that her department could have but chose to seek junior faculty. Another factor that came into play was start-ups; they cost $400,000 at the low end, plus summer salary; for senior faculty start-ups are $1 million plus.”

“Much of what has occurred has been initiative-driven, dating from the Yudof initiatives, Professor Ebner said. There are also external pressures (e.g., to do stem-cell research) that affect strategic positioning.”

“Professor Sullivan said his department has for 40 years tried to identify what it needs to get in and stay in the top ten, but in recent years, most expansions have been initiative-created or interdisciplinary. His department identifies where it needs to make strategic investments to be really good, but those investments often do not match University strategic initiatives.”

“Professor Ebner returned to the cost of start-up packages. Theirs have averaged about $525,000 over the last few hires but the numbers are escalating "to places we do not want to go." $1 million for assistant professors has become common, which his department does not have and which means he can't hire people—why would someone take $525,000 from Minnesota when they can get $1 million elsewhere?”

Professor Sullivan said that in the old budget model, CLA had a lot of soft money and could almost always meet start-up needs. Now there is no money and there will not be, but it was not a problem in the past. There is no established structure, Professor VandenBosch said; it is an ad hoc process, and for their last hire they scrambled to put together a package or else they would have lost the candidate. Professor Ebner said the new budget model is a total disaster for the Medical School; when it started, it put the Medical School so far behind it can never catch up. That problem appears to be widespread among the colleges, Professor VandenBosch commented.

“Professor Dahlberg said the O&M budget increases every year on average; where does the money go? Professors Sullivan and Ebner said to central initiatives. Professor Weisberg, however, said the money goes to the colleges; there are only a couple of initiatives in the Provost's office. Professor Sullivan responded that a lot of money is now going to central initiatives. But not enough yet to set up premier centers, Professor VandenBosch added. Professor Sullivan agreed: departments are hurt by taking the money away but there isn't enough money to build the centers. At the same time, the budget model has increased significantly the amount of money available for compacts.”

“Professor Cohen said it appears that departments that do a lot of teaching but do not have a lot of grants are in trouble, and that departments that have low tuition revenues and a lot of grant funds are in trouble. Professor VandenBosch said it appears that a lot of colleges are in trouble. But funding from the state is up, Professor Weisberg observed. The state has been cheap in recent years, Professor Ebner said, and the positive years have provided a trivial amount in meeting faculty salary needs. Professor VandenBosch commented that it is rare to receive state funds for faculty salary increases (other than for star faculty). Professor Weisberg reported that the Provost has said the legislature has chosen not to fund salary increases except for stars.”

“Professor Bearinger said that her school has lost approximately 10% of its tenured and tenure-track faculty, even two assistant professors who had just received a positive tenure decision. Is this a time to be talking about getting into the top three? When units cannot maintain their research capacity, how can they get to the top three? There is little to suggest that the University is on an upward trajectory.”

“Professor Dahlberg asked the guests about infrastructure and staff needs. Professor Ebner said that if the University is to maintain a world-class research enterprise, faculty must have the tools to do research, some of which are very expensive. In the Academic Health Center they have gone to Internal Service Organizations (ISOs), so faculty must pay for equipment use. The University must pay for equipment, and while the faculty should pay some marginal cost for use, the ISOs are supposed to break even, which is a struggle, so they can't begin to buy new equipment because it's so expensive.”

“Professor VandenBosch agreed that in an area where the University wants to grow, it makes a difference if faculty have to pay their own way. What the University does is strategic planning, not strategic budgeting, and it does not decide what it should not do, or do less of. And it cannot change its mind every few years – there needs to be continuity to build a strength. In terms of infrastructure, staff are important, but funds are invested in faculty lines so staff lines are cut—or the faculty grows but the staff does not. Faculty do not have staff help with grant proposals, especially for centers.”

“One of the most important infrastructure needs is funding for graduate students, Professor Ebner said. The University has not paid enough attention to the recruitment and support of graduate students. Some new funds have gone into the area, but they are inadequate. The University also does not pay attention to graduate education; in one review of a Medical School department, a reviewer wrote that he had never seen a university that invested so little in graduate education. There is little understanding across the University about the importance of graduate education in the research enterprise.”

“Professor Sullivan said it has been increasingly difficult to recruit and retain the best people. That situation has to do with departmental autonomy and the strength of core discipline. His department was in the top 15 from the 1920s until recently, and it was in the top because it made decisions on the basis of the authority of the department faculty. Will departments make decisions on the basis of the faculty working together or will decisions be made by a central unit? In his case, for example, the Dean's office changed department salary recommendations—and in his department, the faculty all review all the salaries and make recommendations. That is an example of the loss of autonomy. Moreover, there has been a shift in funding away from core disciplines toward interdisciplinary centers. Professor Sullivan said he is not optimistic that the social sciences can get back to the top three because there is nation-building occurring: colleges are taking over many department functions and colleges are being constrained by central administration.”

“Professor Dahlberg observed that in his department, they are expanding in areas they believe either are or will be the next frontiers in Physics will be (e.g., cosmology), but not medical devices, and energy, two areas the University wants to emphasize. Many faculty feel it is now more difficult to expand in areas that would move Physics up in the rankings while likely easier to hire people in the research areas directed by the University.”

Professor Dahlberg asked the four guests to grade faculty recruitment, retention, and support at the University. The grades were:

Recruitment: B-, B+ junior faculty and B overall, B, B+ for junior faculty and D for senior faculty

Retention: C, B-, B-, B+ for junior faculty and D for senior faculty

Support: D-, C-, C, C- (for the most recent ten years)

Not a very good report card. OurLeader and ET might consider the opinion of these folks and think about engaging in a discussion, rather than continuing to avoid one.

Ciao, Bonzo

Big Week at BigU

Win some, lose some

Despite last week’s lack of new posts, it was not a quiet week in Lake Wobegun [sic]. Mr. B. did not post last week, however, because he wanted the situation at BigU to sink in. One of the best science bloggers in the business, Pharyngula, aka my own colleague PZ Meyers at the excellent U of M, Morris, campus was kind enough to cite my post in giving his opinion: "Depressing News from My University," wherein he writes:

"UMM recently hosted the University of Minnesota board of regents, and we got a look at the status of the whole U of M system. It's not a happy story. We have an administration with ambitious goals (that's good), but they seem to be a bit divorced from reality — they want to turn us into one of the top three public research universities in the world. That sounds like a great 50 year plan, but I'd rather see an ambitious and feasible 5-year goal, myself."

and

"The ultimate problem is declining investment in education, both in higher ed and our source of students, the Minnesota public schools. Rather than touting grand dreams, it might be wiser of our administrators to highlight the deficiencies in the support our government is giving us, and get them to quit taking the UM system for granted."


[ET, Chairman Bob, hello - are you listening? Do you really want a dialog or do you just want to continue on your merry way, with the volume of the propaganda machine turned up full blast?]

Regular readers will recall that the last post dealt with the miserable ranking of the U compared to our self-selected peers in a number of factors related to the administration's “ambitious aspiration” for BigU to "become one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic].”

Sigh… Denial - It’s not just a river in Egypt.

So what else happened?

This week Leo won the big one, Mystic Lake casino made a 12.5 million dollar donation to BigU, the “little green guys” ran over the Gophers, and yet another example of denial surfaced at BigU.

Leo Hits the Ball Long

Leo is of course Professor Leonid Hurwicz, who is an emeritus member of the economics department and this year’s Nobel Prize winner in economics along with Professors Maskin and Myerson of Princeton and the University of Chicago. Another recent economics laureate with Minnesota connections is Ed Prescott who left a few years ago - in the middle of the academic year - due to an apparent tiff with BigU’s administration. Ed moved to Arizona State where he subsequently received the economics Nobel Prize. Mr. B. notes without further comment that BigU’s economics program has recently hired a large number of new profs.

By all accounts Leo is a modest man and a great teacher. Thus it would appear that work of the highest quality can be done at BigU, despite the fact that we are not currently one of the top three… (You know the drill.)

Little Green Men Stampede Over Gophers

BigU’s football team is struggling this year. Mr. B. was once an ardent Gopher fan, but he has recently lost interest because of the disgraceful performance of the revenue producing teams in graduating student athletes. We are at the bottom of the BigTen. Until we are at least in the respectable middle, enthusiasm will be hard to generate. Mr. B. was an undergrad at Northwestern, so he knows how tough playing football can be in the BigTen. But NU has been to a real bowl game more recently than the Gophers, despite having high academic standards and the best graduation rate in the BigTen.

We have won a single game thus far this year and last weekend we lost to some little green men, approximately the term applied by our football coach to the North Dakota State University Bison who stampeded over the Gophers. Most of the Bison are from Minnesota. I read somewhere recently that the newest NDSU class has more Minnesotans than North Dakotans. It was a home game but the ratio of NDSU fans to Gopher fans must have been about 3/2 in favor of NDSU. The Bison are in a football division below the BigTen and have fewer athletic scholarships. So a loss to them was quite a disappointment, given the large amount of money that was spent last year in order to try to get things in order for future opening of the new, expensive, stadium that will need to be filled. The Bison have now won 20 games in a row, their last loss having been to the Gophers a year ago. NDSU apparently has a great coach who knows how to play the people available to him to best advantage.

$ for Twin City Federal Stadium and

Student Scholarships

The Mystic Lake Casino is a tribal operation that generates a lot of revenue. Alex Bonzo used to work there during summer vacations while he was attending college, so Mr. B. has a soft spot for the casino, even though he is not a gambler. They gave the U 10 mil for the naming rights (which will not be exercised by the casino, but rather the tribal owners) for an area near the front of the stadium. They also donated 2.5 mil that the university is going to match for a student scholarship endowment for native Americans. That should generate about 250K/yr for students which is great. You can’t lose them all.

Disingenuous or Merely Being a Good Cheerleader?

Our provost sent out an odd blanket email last week in which he raved about how wonderful were the ACT scores of our incoming freshman as well their class rank in high school:

“Also featured in local newspapers, and on local radio and television, is the Twin Cities campus's incoming freshman class, which is the best prepared, highest achieving...”

“The Star Tribune's article “U's freshman class has its ACT together” succinctly points out such facts as the class's elevated ACT scores, the increase of students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.”

Mr. B. is not so sure that citing ACT scores or class ranking is a good argument that we are making progress toward entering the upper echelons. Honesty would seem to require admitting the following:

Our 2006 ranking for Exceptional Students:

Top 10% of High School Class: 10th

Average ACT Score: 10th

2-Year Retention Rate: 10th

6-Year Graduation Rate: 11th

The self-selected peer group consists of:

University of Florida

University of Illinois

University of Michigan

The Ohio State University

Pennsylvania State University

University of Texas

University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Los Angeles

University of Washington

University of Wisconsin

I would prefer that we compared ourselves with the other BigTen schools, Northwestern excepted, since they are our actual competition and struggle with the same realities we do. The fact is that even as we improve so does our competition, the so-called Red Queen effect.

Another little problem may be found in the athletics department. There is much chatter about the outstanding recruits who will soon be flooding BigU due to the salesmanship of our new million dollar football coach. Whether he can actually coach is still an open question, see "little green men" above. But he is in good company with OurLeader and ET, since talk, rather than performance, seems to be in vogue at BigU, see "Disingenuous" above.

One of the new recruits, a 4* - meaning that he probably is an outstanding football player - apparently has an ACT score of 13. Sound like business as usual? Maybe OurLeader should look into this...

Don't hold your breath.

From the Land of the Green Giant with neighboring little green men,

Ciao, Bonzo

Spread Far the Fame of Our Fair Name (apologies to NU)
Graduation Rates Again Under the Spotlight


Everyone at BigU knows that we have serious problems with graduation rates. As was reported lately: " Professor Sirc said he talked to Dr. Howard, Director of Institutional Research, about what would be the single best measure to improve the University's rankings; Dr. Howard said it would be to improve the graduation rate."

A website devoted to college admissions reports:

Two economists at William and Mary will be publishing an article that they think improves on the "overperformance/underperformance" in US News.

Here is the link to a draft of the article:

http://www.wm.edu/economics/wp/cwm_wp24.pdf

They compare graduation rates after adjusting for four things:

(1) SAT 25th percentile
(2) percent of freshmen in top 10% of HS class
(3) percent of faculty who are full-time
(4) expenditures per student

They ranked 187 schools based on how well they exceed expectations in getting students to graduate. They produce a "technical efficiency" score for each school that tells the actual graduation rate divided by the expected graduation rate (determined by the four inputs above). For example, a technical efficiency score of .95 means that the actual graduation rate is 95% of the expected graduation rate.

This is, in effect, a ranking based on "value added." How well do schools do given the students they enroll?

Unfortunately, this method indicates again that there are some severe deficiencies at BigU with respect to graduation rates as our ranking and that of some neighbors is indicated below, as well as that of some of our competition:

1 Indiana University Bloomington 1.
1 Pennsylvania State University 1.
1 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 1.

39 University of Wisconsin Madison .995.
47 Northwestern University .985.
49 University of Michigan in Ann Arbor .981.
56 Michigan state University .973.
92 Purdue University West Lafayette at .916.
94 University of Iowa .914.

140 Ohio State University Columbus .837.

179 University of Minnesota Twin Cities .700.

Ouch!

Our closest competitor in the BigTen is Ohio State, the other BigTen Megaversity. But they are nearly 40 slots above us. A gap of more than 40 separates OSU from the rest of the BigTen. With the exception of Minnesota and Ohio state, the BigTen performance by this measure seems pretty respectable. Particularly interesting are the outstanding performances by Indiana, Penn State, and Illinois. There are certain geographic similarities in those institutions, but clearly having an outstanding football team does not seem to correlate with this measure of graduation rates.

So here we are again, folks. Last in the BigTen in graduation rates. Brushing this off by saying "we are improving" will not cut it. There IS literally no place to go but up - we are 179 out of 187 schools studied. Institutions clobbering us include: Universities of Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Wyoming, Idaho, Toledo, Montana, Miami [sic], Missouri, etc., etc., ad nauseum. There is something fundamentally wrong here that needs to be attended to before we should be dreaming about being one of the "top three public research institutions in the world [sic]." The Science Class Room situation, posted on earlier, is just another example of the unreal world in which our administration seems to live. Tearing down large classrooms - required for efficiently processing the large introductory courses that are necessary at a BigU - and not replacing them is wrong-headed, especially in opposition to faculty who are actually using the present Science Classroom Building.

While the Gophers are in Indiana next weekend, maybe OurLeader and ET (Indiana Law is his alma mater) should go down a day early and talk to the folks in Bloomington about how they do so well with graduation rates? Then next Saturday they could cheer on the Gophers, in whom they have so much invested.

Ciao, Bonzo

The Natives Are Restless, or

Does BigU Have the Money to Fulfill Our Ambitious Aspirations?

Minutes*

University of Minnesota Senate Committee on Finance and Planning

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

* These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota Senate; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes represents the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.

Tuition Increases on the Horizon

Will the Regents support a 7.5% tuition increase, Professor Martin asked? They have been told it is part of the budget plans, Mr. Pfutzenreuter said. Professor Chapman suggested that 7.5% will be seen as quite high. Mr. Pfutzenreuter agreed but pointed out that for Minnesota residents the legislature provided funding to buy down the increase by 2%, so it will only be 5.5% (for students from households with an income of up to $150,000). Professor Chapman said he was sorry to see such an increase in an election year; Mr. Pfutzenreuter said the other choices are increased state funding or less new investment.

Austerity at BigU

Professor Chapman inquired of Mr. Pfutzenreuter if, based on his experience, this will be perceived as an austerity budget. Between the tuition increases and the cuts, it looks pretty austere to him, he said. Mr. Pfutzenreuter said it is austere.

Professor Martin said there is no sense of this coming austerity in the University community after all the discussion about how much support the legislature provided for the biennium. This will be a big surprise, she said.

Professor Martin reminded Professor Konstan that while the University can get rid of a college, it cannot get rid of the faculty, who hold tenure in the University. It seems, however, that the University has closed units and not saved money, Professor Konstan said.

Later, Professor Konstan asked whether the universities it seek to join--top public institutions like Michigan and Berkeley--share Minnesota's model of continuously squeezing units. Does this squeeze really lead people to think efficiently, or does it just add stress that saps productivity?

Mr. Pfutzenreuter said he had proposed the approach of putting the burden on the cost-pool owners. Last year they were told to talk to their customers; this year they have an obligation to reduce costs or find more productive ways to do business—and not, for example, by closing four libraries. At some point almost all at the University will say there is nothing more that can be done more efficiently, Professor Martin commented, and people may be close to that point now—and cannot respond in a rational way to directives for greater efficiency.

Professor Konstan related that his back-of-the-envelope calculation was that his department spent $20,000 in faculty time debating whether to hire a faculty member into an open slot versus saving that slot to offset an uncertain upcoming cut. Multiplied across the University, that's a lot of research, teaching, and service not being done that could lead towards top-three status. "We may be spending more time and energy to find cuts than the resulting savings yield in gains.”

More generally, Professor Konstan asked, is $8.5 million in reallocation providing more advancement of the University towards the top-three goal than the amount that University-wide agonizing, stress, and wasted effort over these cuts moves it away from the goal? Mr. Pfutzenreuter agreed that the University may be trying to invest too much in new programs or activities

UMorePark – Gold Mine or Money Sink?

He has been asked a number of times how to pay for this, Dr. Muscoplat related; the goal is to make a lot of money for the University that would be captured in an endowment to support University's academic mission, but it must spend some money to make money. There is several million dollars set aside for UMore Park; there are options for funding, including the mineral rights for the gravel and hiring a developer to sell land, for example. He said he believes the University can finance the project, but at this point they have only a vision, not a plan.

Dr. Muscoplat said he has talked with Dean Bailey about whether the University could develop a different educational system at UMore Park. The question is how to get there; it will not happen at the academic level without resources, such as research assistants and faculty lines. Any plan can be futuristic and scholarly, Dr. Muscoplat said, but if it does not make money for the University, it will not be built.

There is a lot of benefit to the University to invest in real estate as a growth vehicle; the Harvards of the country are doing it. That is a political decision that the Board of Regents must decide, Professor Martin said, but the University does not have a good record as a landlord.

Discussion

With respect to the top-three goal, if the University does not have the financial foundation to make it work, it is unwise to pursue the goal. Only the Academic Health Center has said what it needs to get into the top three, which is 500 additional faculty and new space for them. CLA could say that it needs 200 additional faculty but it has no place to put them. Ambitions may be outranking the ability of the University to achieve them.

Professor Konstan said it would help to identify what the top-five institutions do, whether they have continuing stress. If they have financial stability, the University is in a losing game.

---

On the Explosion of New Medical Schools Nationally and The Possibility of a New One Locally

When the University of St. Thomas and Allina first announced that they were exploring the possibility of a new medical school, Mr. B. was surprised. No doubt the administration at BigU was also surprised and perhaps a little worried?

Mr. B. noted in the announcement by UST that a Pittsburgh consulting firm, with local offices in Minneapolis, Tripp Urbach (TUBA) had been retained for the purpose of a feasibility study.

A little web checking ensued.

From the Tripp Urbach website:

“The Tripp Urbach consultants deliver premium customized market research, strategic planning and economic analysis to a broad range of client partners. Since 1990, Tripp Umbach’s accomplished and seasoned research teams have been providing the essential tools and solutions its clients need to compete and succeed in their specific business environments.”

Hmm…

Their client list is quite impressive and includes some heavy, heavy, hitters such as:

The Cleveland Clinic, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Mass General, The Mayo Clinic, The Ohio State University Medical Clinic, Lenox Hill Hospital, Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh, Children’s Hospital Boston, Children’s Hospital Chicago, a raft of other tony places and interestingly enough, The University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Noteworthy non-medical school academic clients include: Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Penn, Virginia, Penn State, Ohio State, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan State, Pitt, and, interestingly enough, the University of Minnesota.

With a consulting firm such as TUBA, perhaps St. Thomas doesn’t feel that the 150 years of medical school experience that BigU brags about is necessary for them to consult? Especially since BigU itself, as well as its Medical Center, goes to TUBA for advice. Our neighbors at St. Thomas are very smart, they have their own business school and appear to have hired a top notch consulting firm. Perhaps BigU's kvetching at this point appears patronizing? ("Why haven't they consulted us, we have 150 years of experience?" to approximate public statements by our administration.)

Now our leaders at BigU are famous for getting in bed with consulting firms or business school theoreticians. The way this game works is that first you decide what you want and then solicit the appropriate consultant. They tell you what you want to hear and you then go about doing it. Once they know what you want, they can even give you an economic rationalization for it. If things don’t turn out quite right, you can always blame the consultants. Or better yet, just declare the results a success, hope that no one notices, and move on.

The infamous attempt to destroy tenure via the process known as reengineering was the result of a dalliance with the Hammer/Champy crew. Driven to Discover is a commercially inspired enterprise. OurLeader finally let it drop that we are in the middle of a Kotter-inspired change mission. Kotter is a former Harvard Business School type who has decided to live off the gullible in both traditional business and in the business that education has become.

The other development that Mr. B. stumbled upon was the great number of new medical schools on the horizon. Dr. Cerra is correct that the osteopaths are responsible for some of this, but there are plenty of new allopaths (MD’s) on the horizon, much to the delight of premed wannabes and to the consternation of those already in the system who apparently fear the economic competition.

The driving force for most of these new med schools seems to be the production of family practice and internal medicine docs of the type that directly treat patients, or perhaps I should say customers?

There seems to be a feeling that we have enough specialists and researchers, but that general practice docs are in short supply. Given the agonizing experience of most of us in the clinic, perhaps there is actually something to this?

Now, as we are starting to learn at BigU, the usual behavior of the current administration, when there are problems that have been neglected in the past, is to point in some other direction and make a lot of noise.

BigU effectively axes General College, a place with high minority enrollment: “In order to keep minority enrollment up, we’re going to have to cut out of state tuition. That way we can enroll minority students from Illinois, or California, or Florida.”

BigU is at the bottom of the BigTen: “We are going to become one of the top three public research universities in the world.”

We have a shortage of family practice physicians: “The answer is not to turn out more doctors, we need to develop ‘quarterbacks’ for the healthcare system, like pharmacists or nurse practitionsers.”

Medical school tuition at BigU is obscene - the highest of any public university in the country: “We didn’t want to do this, but the legislature made us.”

Good leaders recognize problems early on and do something about them...

Eventually, though, BigU will get dragged, kicking and screaming, into facing and hopefully solving some of our problems. Maybe a kick in the pants from St. Thomas/Allina is not such a bad thing?

Maybe BigU’s medical school should cede the family practice business to St. Thomas and concentrate on turning out specialists and MD/PhDs? As the St. Thomas folks say, they don’t want to compete, just complement.

After all, no one ever became one of the top three public research universities in the world by turning out family practitioners, did they?

Bonzo

Needle Stick! The Latex Gloves Come Off...

Apparently Some Duplications are OK
(Children's Hospitals),
But Not Others (Medical Schools)?

`When I use a word,'
Humpty Dumpty said,
in rather a scornful tone,
`it means just what I choose it to mean
-- neither more nor less.'

The potential new medical school, a joint effort between St. Thomas and Allina, has been the subject of earlier posts. See for example:

Earlier Thoughts of BigU Administration Concerning
Possibility of St. Thomas/Allina Medical School

The frustration level of BigU's administration at not being consulted on the matter seems to be surfacing.

(Mr. Bonzo thanks a friend for calling this post to his attention.)

From the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal:

U official questions UST medical school

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

June 29, 2007

by Lauren Wilbert

The University of St. Thomas and Allina Hospitals & Clinics' idea to jointly build a new medical school in the Twin Cities is generating some concern in the local health care community, particularly within the University of Minnesota's medical program.

St. Thomas and Allina's proposed school would produce primary-care physicians in family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics, areas where doctors are projected to be in increasingly short supply. The organizations this week hired Pittsburgh-based Tripp Umbach to oversee their summer-long feasibility study of the new school. Tripp Umbach is a consulting firm with a Minneapolis office that has led studies for several startup medical schools nationwide.

Some health care leaders, including Dr. Frank Cerra, who leads the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center are skeptical that producing more graduates would solve the looming shortage.

Instead of building a new school, he said, the health care community should focus on solving issues of reimbursement for primary-care doctors and how to pull other medical practitioners, such as nurses and pharmacists, into the mix.

"Just increasing the capacity to train physicians isn't really an answer to the problem," Cerra said. "There is a work force issue, yes. But we need to wrestle with the cost of medical education and the debt incurred."

Cerra said he would rather see the U's hospital work with Allina's Abbott Northwestern Hospital, for example, to coordinate their primary care residencies. A new school might only duplicate programs that already exist. [Apparently this argument does not apply to children's hospitals.]

Mary Brainerd, CEO of Bloomington-based HealthPartners, agreed with Cerra that other options should be studied besides training more doctors.

She is skeptical that a primary care physician shortage is due to too few students entering that field. It could be that the aging population is simply creating a need for more doctors who can be a "quarterback for the care you get," Brainerd said.

"I'm not sure what that quarterback role will look like," she said. "Maybe it's more nurse practitioners working with specialists. With the shortages, we'll have to get creative."

But Tom Rochon, St. Thomas' executive vice president of academic affairs who is a co-leader of the feasibility study, disagreed. "It's very clear that our region needs more doctors, and it needs more doctors in family practice," he said.

The demand for more physicians will be one of the main issues addressed by the feasibility study. If it finds the school wouldn't help the community, it won't be built, he said.

The study also will look into the cost of opening a new school, recruiting faculty and students and space needs of a new school.

"One of the challenges we'll face is [determining], 'How do we make sure we're filling this gap we've identified and not just producing more researchers?' " Rochon said. The school, instead, would aim to put more practicing physicians in the Twin Cities and rural Minnesota.

"We don't think we're competing against or detracting from the [programs at] the University of Minnesota," he added. "Hospitals accept residents from multiple medical schools.

Rochon acknowledged that the partnership with Allina makes for a sensitive situation with the U of M, which sends medical students to Allina hospitals for training.

But the new school and partnership with St. Thomas would not mean fewer residency spots at Allina for U of M students, said Dr. Penny Wheeler, Allina's chief clinical officer.

For its latest clinical training program, university medical school graduates filled only 45 of Allina's 142 primary care residency positions. As talks of a new school go forward, Allina might be able to create additional spots, said Allina spokesman David Kanihan.

Wheeler is working to schedule meetings with various officials at the U of M to talk about how the new school would affect their long-standing relationship, and Allina CEO Dick Pettingill has met with Cerra at least twice so far, she said.

"[The proposed school] is meant to be complementary, not competitive," Wheeler said.

Still, some from the university feel left out of the planning process.

"We've offered to help Allina and St. Thomas in any way possible," Cerra said. "We have 150 years of experience with schools, and so far, they haven't asked for that information." [What is this about? See above. Looks like Dr. Cerra has met with Allina CEO "at least twice so far."]

St. Thomas and Allina's focus on primary care comes as some Minnesota schools are showing a drop in students going into that field. Figures from the U of M's annual residency match program, which places medical students in practice areas, show that internal medicine and family practice have the highest participation.

But those numbers have dropped while class sizes have stayed relatively flat. In 2005, 50 students entered an internal medicine residency and 40 went into family practice. By 2007, those numbers dropped to 39 students in internal medicine and 35 students in family practice.

As Mr. Spock would say: "Interesting."

Bonzo

And another one hits the road...

(Mr. B. thanks a friend for calling this to his attention.)

From BigU's Biotechnology Gateway:

Flickinger leaves BTI for N.C. State

The BioTechnology Institute's Michael C. Flickinger, Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, has accepted a joint appointment with North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, as Professor of Microbiology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the College of Engineering located on the Centennial Campus. Beginning this August, he will also be Associate Director for Curriculum of the new Golden Leaf Biomanufacturing, Training and Education Center (BTEC), the largest bioprocess and biomanufacturing training center of its kind on a U.S. academic campus.

It is going to be difficult to complete the Ten Year March to Greatness when we can't keep the good people we've got. NC State is an interesting institution. They have also recently recruited a world-class mass spec/proteomics person (David Muddiman) from Mayo. It's hard to be humble at BigU when you have ambitious aspirations, but maybe it would be a more productive strategy to try to keep the good people we have?

Bonzo

So What's It Going to Be at BigU?

A Medallion or a Yugo?

Mr. B. has previously written about the Yugo strategy that was unfortunately endorsed today at the U of M by the Board of Regents.

See: "The Fix is On, Another Fast Shuffle at BigU, or If You Can't Compete on Quality Compete on Price"

Thanks to OurLeader for further evidence that discussion of such matters is not for the stakeholders. Big Brother knows best. So much for transparency and openness. There are many unintended consequences on the horizon.

Out of state (non-reciprocity) tuition is to be set at $2000 per semester higher than in state tuition. This is a cut of about $8000 per year. It will be interesting to see how much traffic this generates from out of state students. Needless to say the new rate is significantly less than out of state tuition at so-called medallion schools that the U would like to emulate:

Many of the nation’s best and brightest students consider the University of Minnesota a “medium-quality school,” not in the same class as Michigan or Wisconsin.

The university is not viewed as a “medallion” destination [According to BigU, the BigTen medallion schools are Michigan, Penn State, Illinois, and Wisconsin] by top academic prospects. Even honors students who choose Minnesota rate its academic quality lower than the schools they turned down, according to an internal university analysis.

“Medium-quality, high-affordability” schools like the University of Minnesota must keep tuition low or offer big scholarships to lure good students. “Medallion schools” can charge higher tuition and offer fewer merit scholarships.

Oh well, if you can't compete on quality, compete on price. There was even talk in the early stages of the proposed Ten Year March to Greatness that a high quality residential college should be formed to attract outstanding students. Someone must have finally realized that this would cost a lot of money, more than we are apparently willing to spend except for football. BigU is not Carleton, St. Olaf, or Macalester. Education at BigU remains a business. It will be interesting to see the reaction of ColdState citizens to this move, once its implications become more fully understood.

From the Pioneer Press:

by Paul Tosto (Article Last Updated: 06/27/2007 04:26:20 PM CDT)

The U will significantly cut tuition at the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses for students from states outside the Upper Midwest. Starting for students entering in 2008-2009, those "non-resident, non-reciprocity" students will pay only $2,000 more per semester than Minnesotans for the Twin Cities campus and $1,000 more than Minnesotans in Duluth. Right now it's nearly a $6,000 difference on the Twin Cities campus and nearly $5,000 for Duluth.

Officials say that while the U's commitment to Minnesota students remains solid, the university is concerned about projected declines of high school students in Minnesota and neighboring states and how it might affect the university's future enrollment. Reducing non-resident tuition would make the U potentially more attractive to students outside the Upper Midwest.

One of the deans at an open forum on the budget claimed that going out of state, to Illinois for example, was going to be necessary in order to keep up minority enrolllment at BigU. Excuse me sir, you have heard of the late, lamented General College? You do know that we have a large minority population in North Minneapolis that might be fertile ground for BigU to do some of this vaunted outreach and community involvement. Perhaps then we could educate our own minority citizens at BigU rather than the citizens of Illinois, or Florida, or California. Or is that too much to ask of a land grant institution that aspires to be one of the top three public research universities in the world, but is having trouble rising to the top half of the BigTen?

See: "Oh Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble, When You Have Ambitious Aspirations"

At least for now it is apparently not the medallion, but the Yugo for BigU. Let's all hope for better in the future.

Bonzo

p.s.

Professor Vivek Kapur, Director of the Biomedical Genomics Center at BigU, has just announced that he will be decamping for one of those BigTen medallion schools BigU wishes to emulate - Penn State.

Some difficult choices face our leaders at BigU: Coke or Pepsi? Research or Teaching? Duplication of medical schools or children's hospitals? Becoming the third greatest public research university in the world or pursuing our mission as a land grant university? The medallion or the Yugo?