June 13, 2013
Proposal #84096:
MS, PhD in Comparative Health Sciences
Proposal #84452:
Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Executive Summary:
With this proposal, the College of Veterinary Medicine seeks to create a new interdisciplinary degree program in Comparative Health Sciences.
This will be a research program at the multi-species whole-animal level.
The program will start with a single option, Biomedical Sciences, but more could be added later. As an interdisciplinary program, this will be administered by the Graduate School.
The MS in Veterinary Science program is being terminated.
Rationale:
This program is complementary to the DVM program in that it is more research-oriented. It is also complementary to the existing MS and PhD in
Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that market demand for biomedical scientists will grow “much faster than average”.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Classes:
MS – 45 credits
PhD – 108 credits
These consist of core + option-specific + blanket.
All courses will be delivered on-campus.
Some new courses will need to be developed.
Cohort:
The graduating cohort size is expected to be 5 MS and 3 PhD.
Budget Impacts: Mostly consists of grad student support. Note that this means that the budget would scale with cohort size.
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
$267,995 $416,640 $565,106 $570,395
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

External Letters of Support:
• Colorado State University
Internal Letters of Support:
• OSU Graduate School
• OSU Molecular and Cellular Biology
• OSU College of Pharmacy
• OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Issues: There were budget issues – the library reviews were incorrectly accounted for. That was corrected. There were also some issues with
(what I would call) “vagueness”. Those were clarified and/or corrected.
CC Vote: The Curriculum Council unanimously approved this proposal.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Executive Summary:
This proposal seeks to create the School of Life Sciences under the College of Science with three departments: Biochemistry and Biophysics,
Microbiology, and Integrative Biology.
There are no changes in majors, degrees, or curricular structure.
Rationale: This is consistent with other creation of Schools within Colleges at OSU. The COS feels that this is necessary to create a structure to better manage their operation.
Impacts to Students: The name change will not affect majors, degrees, or course offerings.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Before: After:
**
*
**
The School Director position will be rotated among the chairs.
*
The Curriculum Committee will coordinate and review curricular changes in the SLS. It will be composed of two representatives from each department and two from the
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology (in the CAS).
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Budget Impacts:
Minor: One month summer salary for the School Director. Also, letterhead, web pages, business cards, etc.
Year 1
$21,573
Year 2
$25,828
Year 3
$29,854
Year 4
$34,441
Liaison Letters:
• Cary Green, College of Agricultural Sciences
• Lynda Ciuffetti, Botany and Plant Pathology Department
• Hal Salwasser, College of Forestry
• Mark Abbott, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Andy Blaustein, Environmental Sciences Graduate Program
• Tom Dick, Math Department
• Anita Grunder, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Virginia Lesser, Statistics Department
• Larry Flick, College of Education
• Larry Rodgers, College of Liberal Arts
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
CC Issues:
1.
The original proposal called for creating a Zoology Department and putting the Biology major within that. The CC thought that this was questionable (some of the Liaisoners also felt the same way). The
CC also felt that it would be better if there was some indication of the broad, inclusive nature of Biology in the title. This led to a new name proposed: Department of Integrative Biology.
CC Vote: The Curriculum Council unanimously approved this proposal with the new name.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline:
The College of Science submitted their SLS Cat I proposal on December 5.
The Curriculum Council first discussed this proposal on March 1.
By coincidence, members of BPP were at that CC meeting to discuss the report that had been issued from their 10-year Academic Program Review.
Even though it was not the norm, the CC allowed them to stay and register their objections to the SLS proposal that was to be discussed next.
Members of the College of Science arrived to discuss the proposal.
The CC reviewed the proposal. Their major objection was that “Biology” was being subsumed into Zoology. This information was given to the COS. The proposal was sent back. This is not unusual. Most Cat I’s get sent back for something .
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline, cont:
In the meantime, in an effort to better understand, and maybe even resolve, the conflict between COS and CAS, separate meetings were held with both groups.
In our meetings with BPP, it was stated that what they wanted was a Biology
Program sitting one level below the COS, not a Department sitting under a
School.
In our meetings with COS, they wanted the School-with-Departments structure to better manage their large and rapidly-growing set of activities.
In our meetings with BPP, we asked them straightout “Is there a department name you would find acceptable?” They reiterated that it was the structure that was the key issue, not the specific name.
In our meetings with COS, they changed the proposal to make the name
“Department of Integrative Biology”, to reflect the importance of Biology and to reflect the multi-contributor nature of it
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
Timeline, cont:
(School of Life Sciences)
Because this new version of the proposal did nothing to address BPP’s concerns (remembering that we had been told that the structure was the real issue), I deemed it unnecessary to return it for additional liaison. Nothing about the structure had changed.
On May 24, the CC unanimously approved this proposal. (Note: the CC has a member of the CAS on it, who was at this meeting.)
On June 3, the EC approved this proposal 6-1-1.
On June 7, BPP emailed members of the CC asking them to reconsider the proposal. The email said a “serious procedural error” had occurred, referring to
BPP not being asked to liaison on the new department name.
On June 7, the CC did re-discuss the proposal, and unanimously passed a resolution: “ After considering Stella Coakley’s memo of June 7, the Curriculum
Council affirms its original vote related to the School of Life Sciences Category
I proposal and decides to take no further action.” (Again, note: that the CC has a member of the CAS on it, who was at this meeting.)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
Timeline, cont:
On June 10, at the request of BPP, the EC also re-discussed the proposal. The
EC declined to pull the proposal from the Faculty Senate agenda.
June 13 – Faculty Senate
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
From http://oregonstate.edu/admin/aa/apaa/academic-programs/curriculum/curricular-policies-and-procedures#94
Most curricular proposals require liaison with other academic units. The purposes of liaison are:
1. To gather information and opinions concerning the propriety and quality of the changes being proposed.
2. To assure that students (including those outside the department) are not adversely affected by curricular changes.
3. To reduce duplication of curriculum and enhance complementarity of curriculum within the university and with other OUS institutions.
Feedback should be solicited from all campus units whose programs or students could be affected by the proposal and/or whose common subject matter pertains to the subject matter of the proposal (see list of OSU curriculum contacts). Email is an acceptable form of liaison (see sample letter or email of liaison).
It is common to include a statement in the cover memo that if no response is received by a reasonable deadline, the assumption will be that the recipient has no objections.
Copies of liaison letters sent and all replies received should be attached to the proposal when it is submitted. The proposal should also include a memo addressing any concerns which surfaced during the liaison process.
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
" Ultimately, the importance of biological sciences and the wide distribution of faculty with expertise in this area at OSU would suggest that the biology program might be placed at the university level; this has happened at other institutions. However, we are not proposing that at this time but rather that the biology major be placed at the School level and be managed similarly to how it has been in the past.”
-From Cary Green’s liaison
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
“Integrative Biology”
This term is used to name units at UC Berkeley, UT Austin, University of Illinois, and the University of South Florida.
The Journal of Integrative and Comparative Biology says:
What is “Integrative Biology”?
We have a tiger by the tail, folks; “integrative biology” suddenly has cachet and significance. Many biologists now call themselves integrative biologists; academic units in the U.S. are changing their names to Integrative Biology (it occurred at Berkeley twelve years ago, and the department has been trying to develop wide-ranging but coherent research and teaching in integrative biology; departments at Texas, Illinois, and Basel, for example, also are deliberately “integrative biology.”
National Science Foundation program areas are stressing the “integrative” aspects of research in name and practice; and scientists talk about “integrative” approaches to biodiversity ( e.g., Wake,
1995, 1998), to physiology ( e.g., Marden et al.
, 1998), endocrinology and neurobiology ( e.g.,
Vaudry et al.
, 1998), ecology and morphology ( e.g., Wainwright and Reilly, 1994), biology hierarchically ( e.g., Wake, 1990; Pennisi, 2000), and even to medicine ( e.g., Goldstein, 1997;
Chien, 2000; Halperin and Kamel, 2000; Rudy, 2000), and many other synthetic areas that cross standard disciplinary boundaries. http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/2/239.full (2013)
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

Merge a Department/School with another Department/School
(School of Life Sciences)
"I have read through this final proposal (as well as the earlier version). I appreciated our discussions with you and some of your colleagues during my visits and over the past month. I very much appreciate the work and the vetting process it has gone through.
This is to show my strong support to move forward with the process and not delay it any further. I wish you the best with a positive outcome this month."
-- Dr. Sastry Pantula, incoming Dean of Science
Mike Bailey, OSU Curriculum Council
June 13, 2013

My Summary
BPP teaches 27% of the SCHs in Biology. That needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. For students to be best served, this needs to continue.
Colleges have the right to re-organize themselves as they see fit in order to best manage what they do.
Faculty Senate has never seen fit to create an “Org Chart Council”. Creating Schools as an organizing tool is consistent with what others are successfully doing at OSU.
The CC‘s job is to be sure that the students and the major are served. This happened.
Most Cat I’s are sent back for something. When they come back, a decision is made about how much reliaison and re-committee is appropriate. It is not automatically re-looked at by everyone who looked at it before. That would make no sense.
BPP made it very clear that the structure was the major issue, not the specific name.
Liaisons are designed to make sure conversations happen. They do not guarantee that the eventual results will be acceptable to everyone.
Thus, the process followed here had no “serious procedural errors” in it. If anything, more effort and consideration were put into this Cat I than is normal.
The CC voted in favor of this … unanimously … twice.
The EC voted in favor of this … overwhelmingly … twice.
The new Dean of Science supports this, so waiting for him to arrive will make no difference.
June 13, 2013