University joins Pew Roundtable project

President Donald Zacharias recently accepted an invitation for Mississippi State to join the Pew Higher Education Roundtable, a national project designed to initiate dialogue to solve problems on college campuses through collaboration.

The project is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and directed by the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Higher Education Research. Mississippi State is one of 140 member institutions from across the country. As a member of the Roundtables, the university will conduct at least two campus roundtables during the spring semester.

"We hope that after these two sessions, more roundtables will be generated in the semesters to come," said Dr. George Rent, associate vice president, Office of the Provost.

According to Pew Charitable Trusts, "The premise of the campus roundtable is that an institution gains strength both academically and operationally when its constituents speak collectively and engage in constructive dialogue. It serves as a forum both for voicing individual thoughts on the challenges facing an institution and for forming a collective understanding of those challenges within the campus community. The roundtable is not a standing committee or an implementation group, but rather a community seminar in which participants are encouraged to explore ideas together without becoming encumbered by the consideration of obstacles or operations."

The two spring roundtables will be composed of a group of representatives who are willing to forget their positions and constituents, are members of the community and will share ideas. Rent said representation of the various academic units was not a major factor in the selection of the first participants, but that the Pew group requires at least half of the roundtable be faculty members.

The roundtable participants were selected by a group of administrators and Holland Faculty Senate leaders including: Provost Derek Hodgson, Vice President for Business Affairs Leah Norman, Marion Couvillion, faculty senate chair, Leslie Bauman, faculty senate vice chair, Charles Sparrow, University Resources Commitee chair, Dan Embree, University Resources Commitee past chair, and Rent.

Rent said those selected for the first roundtable session will be notified soon and dates for this session and the second are still being worked out.

He said participants would explore broadly the forces confronting higher education in a market-driven economy, but the more specific issue will revolve around "decision making as related to resource allocation, input into strategic planning and the budgetary process."

Possible questions to be addressed include: How is input generated from all levels of the university and is it open for review? What are the final priorities and how are they developed? What is the relation to the University Mission?

"The objective of these two upcoming roundtables is not to generate a report which serves as the structure to reorganize the university," Rent added. "Rather, it is to generate thought about the way we do things and question why; to stimulate new ideas and verbally explore the possibilities; to create a true sense of community in which all participants have an equal opportunity to assess and interject ideas of change which will maximize the quality of the environment in which we teach, learn, research, and provide service."