For many decades, universities have conducted periodic peer-led reviews of academic departments or units. The reviews (on many campuses, at 5-7 year intervals) generally start with introspection and self-assessment by members within the unit. They often involve a campus visit by peer scholars outside the university. The reviewers meet with faculty, administrators, students, and staff connected to the unit. They discuss and share evaluations and provide a written report to the unit’s members and to administrators responsible for the units.
In some sense, this process mirrors the peer review protocols for vetting scholarly output of individual faculty and new research proposals. Indeed, peer review is a key accepted quality control mechanism throughout academia.
However, such reviews rarely incorporate evaluation of research centers and other semi-permanent collections of faculty who have research or outreach missions.
Georgetown has many such centers. Indeed, depending on what definition is used, there are more than 70 centers, institutes, programs, or initiatives that have quasi-permanent status on the Main Campus alone. In this blog, we’ll use the term “center” as a convenient title for all such units.
In order to evaluate and support those units in more effective ways, the deans of the Main Campus and the provost’s office have developed an evaluative protocol for such units. Like the protocol for the review of academic programs, the review of centers will be periodic, on a schedule that we will construct over the coming months.
Unlike the review of academic programs, there will be three types of center reviews. All three will begin with a set of questions about the status of the center posed by provost’s and dean’s offices. These questions will concern outputs of the center, commentary on impacts of the center’s work, and the financial status of the unit.
After a review of answers to those questions, the School or College Dean, in consultation with the Office of the Provost, will take one of three actions: 1) move forward with action items immediately, 2) have a subsequent on-site team visit and review, or 3) have an expedited review requiring no on-site visit but including a review of relevant documents by an outside review team.
The review teams will be composed of two to three external reviewers and one Georgetown University full-time faculty member.
The goals of the center review process are not dissimilar to the goals of the review of academic units — to gain insight into strengths and weaknesses, to assess possible measures to improve the performance of the unit, and to alert us to activities of similar groups on other campuses.
Our hope is that, after such reviews, we can all make better judgments about the way forward for Georgetown’s centers, institutes, initiatives, programs, and like units.
I hope you will be structuring this process differently for centers that are all externally funded. Happy to help think it through.
Given the importance of such centers to the McCourt School, we look forward to participating collaboratively in these reviews.
The initiative described in this week’s blog will no doubt be difficult, but is very necessary. Common sense suggests that among 70 centers, institutes, programs and initiatives are some that have either outlived their usefulness and should be closed or cut back, or could be effectively consolidated with others to accomplish the same at lower cost.
For better or worse, the major portion of every dollar Georgetown spends on almost anything comes out the pockets of students, parents and young alumni repaying school loans. The cost they pay has risen to unprecedented levels. Steps must be taken to relieve their burden.
Furthermore, given the severity of that problem and in fairness to all stakeholders, the same scrutiny that this initiative would apply to the academic side of University operations must also be applied to the administrative side. Common sense further suggests that what is happening in the one sphere is probably happening in the other. Many commentators have observed there to be significant inefficiencies generally in higher education administration, particularly as compared with the private sector. It is unlikely that we here at Georgetown are immune.
This is unquestionably a difficult problem. But we have an obligation to our students, parents and young alumni take it on, and do our best to solve it.
Bill Kuncik, Georgetown MALS
Needed Study imo