OSU system CEO initiates Academic Accountability Plan

Friday, September 16, 2005

Oklahoma State University System CEO and President David J. Schmidly has instituted a systemwide “report card” plan that will track progress within academic units, help OSU achieve national prominence, and give administrators better information to make decisions about resource allocation.

"Oklahoma’s taxpayers rightfully expect and demand accountability and excellence from their colleges and universities," Schmidly said. "The OSU Academic Report Card is one way to ensure that OSU System academic departments and administrators, including myself, are maximizing resources and doing all they can to make OSU a better institution."

He said OSU’s Strategic Planning Council has compiled a huge database called “The Academic Ledger” for every campus.

The ledger contains spreadsheets with five years of data for every academic department and unit in the university. The data include key indicators, such as the number of students being taught, the number of degrees awarded, graduation and retention rates, memberships in national academies, the number of faculty within departments, the amount of research being conducted, funding patterns over time, and economic development activity, such as new patents awarded.

Schmidly said a benchmark such as the Academic Ledger is essential as the university works toward goals laid out in OSU’s Achieving Greatness Strategic Plan. 

“The way you make and measure progress is to determine where you are and where you want to go," Schmidly said.

A critical facet of the Academic Ledger is its transparency. The information is available to everyone in the OSU System and the general public.

“Taxpayers provide the dollars, and they have a right to examine how those resources are used,” Schmidly said.