Projections are predictions based on a
justification. Just like in horse racing, you can study the past, look to the
present and then make your best guess. There are no guarantees and there is
every likelihood that even the most well researched projection needs to be
revisited after time and adjusted according to how well it reflects actual practice. Anyone who works in project management planning and execution
is aware how important it is to take a moment for reality checking with
some regularity. Same goes for construction and carpentry; the best builders
aren't those that can just read blueprints. It is equally important to know how
to recognize weaknesses and make adjustments during the working process.
Just like in horse racing, if you are betting with somebody
else’s money, it is crucial to set benchmarks, revisit, and adjust
as you go along. To not do so is not very nice.
UNCG is big on projections but not so much on
reality checking. This checklist mentality was recently demonstrated with the forum-that-wasn't after a dust-up last
semester in regards to secondary employment and conflict of interest. The
Chancellor scheduled a forum, that is, an assembly for the discussion of
questions of public interest. The Chancellor then delivered a prepared speech,
a misinformation diode. The value of this activity was not for the attendants
that day to have discussion and clarity. The purpose was so sometime in the
future when questions arise about what went on in these tumultuous months,
administrators can point to a document artifact and say, “Look, that old Chancellor
held a forum. See? It is on a calendar, so kumbaya was restored.”
It is not too late for UNCG to adopt best
practices going forward, especially with the plans for the new Dr. Nurses
degree program. At risk is gambling other people’s money on a horse that’s
already been revealed not to be the thoroughbred described in the tip sheets.
The original and rather grandiose government backed stallion, the Union Square
Campus, turned out to be a few hands short and with a bit of a wheeze. The idea
of putting it in a back pasture may not provide a win in this race.
The way to find a win is to take a look at the
last backed champ, poke it a bit, see how it fared. Using a reality model could
get the Dr. Nurses in a better position to hit the board.
There was tremendous support from all levels for
the first academic program native to the Gateway University Research Park South
on East Lee St. If you want to review
the reasons in favor of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN),
the Triad Business Journal is a great cheerleader. It would be more instructive
to go back to the establishment documentation and look at the original
projections against the real outcomes over the last five years.
From the Request for a New Degree program,
“Professional Master of Science in Nanoscience” (October 9, 2009), student
demand was estimated to be tremendous.
OK, remember this: up to ten students in the first
year and 30 in subsequent years. Note that this is a two year program so by the
third year you are at steady state with 60 PMS students.
Projections, the justified estimate from the Ph.D.
in Nanoscience Request for Authorization to Establish, (October 10, 2008) also suggested robust
interest, speedy build up and sustainable steady state.
A couple of points to note, the projection states that with transfer students, initial graduate
production should begin in short order, ahead of the timeline for new full-time
students with Ph.D.s graduating in under the projected four year cycle. As
well, the 90% persistence rate projection is notable. As a reality check, Year 1 was delayed for the
nanoscience Ph.D. so the first cohort which enrolled in Fall 2010 was doubled
to welcome 18 full time students and no part time students, making it equal in
student credit hour production and full time equivalence for projected Year 2.
By the second year, the nanoscience PMS and Ph.D.
projected student enrollment (40 PMS + 15 full time PhD + 8 part time PhD for
full time equivalent) of 59 students. By
the third year the PMS would have reached steady state (graduates being
replaced with new enrollment) for a flat 60 students forward. By the fourth year,
the Ph.D. students would also reach steady state having already graduated any
students who came in as transfers as well as graduating the first cohort and
replacing with new enrollment for a flat 41 students full time equivalency (32
full time + 18 part-time or 9) or a grand total of 110 bodies with the
equivalent for 101 in credit production.
Now credit production may not mean much to most of
us but think of it as widgets. If you wish to justify investment in widgets,
you need to demonstrate that more widgets are needed. If you wish to justify
hiring well paid publicly funded widget makers, you need to show that those
widgets are in serious demand. If you claim that that widgets are so valuable
that not only can your widget makers produce lots of them, they will have to
hire sub-widget makers to help keep up and widget apprentices to keep the
widget lines moving. In fact, if your justification is that these innovative
widgets are so cunningly disruptive, both private industries and federal
entities will pump money into their production like August thunderstorms until
the gullies are awash in lucre, the sub-widget makers and the widget
apprentices will be paid for with overflow and there will be enough dough-re-mi
floating around to revitalize a whole region. At that point, there will be
little need for public investment in the process, as this whole operation will
sustain itself in just a year or two. So you see, credit production, just like
headcounts and graduation rates are pretty important.
As a sidebar, these widgets are so valuable that
within the establishment documents, the head honcho widget experts would get a
break on teaching loads. Unlike the expected teaching load on campus, nanoscience
professors would be expected to teach just one class per semester as their main
role would be mentoring widgeteers and of course bulldozing their huge piles of
grant money into neat piles.
So let’s take a look at projected student credit
hours. Please note that this is just for the Ph.D. which allows for the first
three semesters to include foundational courses and show and tell labs at the
Masters level (at the 600 level, 5 lecture courses x 3 credits + 2 professional
development seminars x 1 credits + 4 seven week lab rotations x 1 credit = 21
credits toward the doctoral degree at the Masters level per doctoral student).
So there we have a really well laid out plan for a dynamic
program underpinned by strong justifications that have every reason to become
productive and self-sustaining within four years.
When you build a house, you don’t wait until the carpet
is laid to check the solidity of the foundation. When you make furniture, you
measure, cut, measure, attach, and test to get out the wobbles. At the track, you check out your horse’s position at each stretch to
see if you are still in the race and/ or to readjust your strategy so you’ll
still place. Unfortunately, UNCG doesn’t believe in formative assessment so you
probably haven’t seen these numbers put to good use over the last five years. The numbers are publicly available per
accreditation mandates.
Student demand measured by enrollment beginning
the fall of 2010.
Well this is not quite the 110 individuals that
were projected. And it looks like they added a new degree although UNC Board of
Governors doesn’t recognize it (https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/programs/index.php).
Anyhow, maybe we can see some productivity in student
credit hours.
So this is kind of weird. If you recall, the projection was for 132
fundable credit hours at the master’s level and 588 for the doctoral level in
the Ph.D. degree program, not 225 masters and 172 doctoral. This looks like masters level student credit hours
are really skewed. While the
foundational courses at the masters level were approved for application to the
PhD that is only 15 course credits out of 60 total credits per course of study.
The actual Ph.D. students outnumber the masters level students by 4x. Even given the common foundations, either the
Ph.D. students are actually all part time or they are earning their Ph.D.s with
master’s level effort. Of course the total credit hours is less as the
projected number of students is more than twice the actual.
It might make more sense to look at this picture
using numbers, a dollars and ‘sense’ approach. This is strictly back-of-the-envelope
calculation based on student numbers and published tuition and fee schedules
rather than individual students' actual direct plus indirect support.
In-state tuition at UNCG is currently $4641 per
academic year. Health insurance is $802 per semester. Out-of-state tuition is
$18,090 per academic year. The first cohort (1 PMS and the rest Ph.D.) received
graduate assistantships of $26,000 for nine months. Summer assistantships
ranged between $2,000 and $6,000 per three non-academic months.
For an in-state student, the total state supported
cash outlay was about $36,245 per year.
For an out-of-state student, the total state supported
cash outlay was about $49,694 per year.
Of the original first cohort, a PMS student
graduated in two years. Four students earned their Ph.D.s within 4½ years. Seven “stopped out” (UNCG doesn’t use the crass
term ‘dropped’) and five were still active in the fall semester. In dollars,
cost to the taxpayer is under $70,000 outlay for the PMS, about $700,000 total
for the Ph.D. graduates, $1.6M for the persisters, and about $2M for the
stoppers. In other terms, for return on
investment type people, that is 4.5 degrees at a total cost of $971,000 per
degree (4 Ph.D., one PMS at a total student direct and indirect outlay of
$4.3M).
Keep in mind, this is student pocket expenses for just one cohort. You can
refer to the 5 year trend for enrollment and head count to see how many widgeteers remain. The second cohort direct support was lowered to $20,000 for 9
months for Ph.D.s and $9,000 for masters in order to equal the maximums allowed
for nanoengineering students entering that year. Enjoy the math.
How can this be instructive for the Dr. Nurses
program? First, it is essential to have benchmarks and reality checks. UNCG
projects 320 students enrolled in that program.
They might want to make an exigency plan for reality. You can
see from the nanoscience actual numbers that even the best projections may fall
short in practice. Secondly, while the nursing facility issue at UNCG is a concern, the
state was not concerned enough to provide the go ahead to build a new facility
on campus. Instead, UNCG is trying to
convince Greensboro taxpayers to float a bond to build downtown. Given that
there is an underutilized high research facility just two miles away, it may be
a good idea to try out the program in the empty space already standing on Lee
St. first. After all, John Merrill still holds the reins for Gateway, there
would be no need to change jockeys. This
may be an opportunity to breathe some life into the old trotter after all.
