Dean's Report
On March 13 and 14, 2002, students in the Orfalea College of Business voted overwhelmingly in support of academic fees (53% of our students voted, with 63.5% voting yes!). "Specifically, the fees shall be used to maintain and enhance the quality of OCOB programs and support (e.g., new tenure-track faculty hires, increased class availability, improved technologies). Among the uses for these fees may be hiring quality faculty, lecturers, and student workers; purchasing, maintaining, and repairing instructional equipment and technology; and improving academic advising (e.g., hiring more advising support)." (source: OCOB Academic Fee Proposal)
The $200 per quarter academic fee went into effect fall quarter 2002. I am pleased to report the following impact highlights for 2003-04 academic fee. (For more detail, please see the financial report.)
New Faculty / More Sections
For 2002-03, the OCOB had a goal of hiring ten new tenure-track faculty to join the OCOB family in 2003-04. New faculty were sought in Accounting, Economics, Finance, Industrial Technology, Management and Marketing. During the recruiting process, informal interviews were held with dozens of faculty candidates. 22 candidates were brought to campus for in-depth interviews and 15 job offers were made. Of these 15, four new faculty were hired - three with academic fee funding. The OCOB is back in the recruiting markets to fill the remaining seven academic fee positions with an expected start date of September 2004. If the state budget permits, the OCOB would like to hire even more new faculty.
While recruiting for new tenure-track faculty, we hired 14 full-time visiting faculty for 2002-03. This expanded our ability to cover courses/sections above and beyond what we could without the fee funds. Once again in 2003-04, we have used college-based fee funds to hire visiting faculty to augment our new tenure-track hires.
Academic Advising
The OCOB Advising Center was totally reengineered during summer 2002 with resources provided by the academic fee money. The Advising Center switched to a "Peer Advising Model" to accommodate the increased demand for advising appointments. By utilizing peer advisors, expanding its web presence and leveraging the skills of the professional academic advisors, the Advising Center has become one of the "best practices" area in the OCOB, as identified by its AACSB (accrediting body for colleges and schools of business) peer review visitation team. For example, during the first week of fall quarter, the Advising Center was able to handle 967 in-person student contacts. (As a point of comparison, the first week of fall 2001, the advising center was able to handle only 250 appointments.) This is above and beyond the web site hits recorded. The Peer Advising Model, funded in part by the College based Academic Fee, continues to provide continuously improving service to students.
Lab Support
Student workers play a key role in providing support to other students in two of the OCOB lab operations: computing services (3rd floor computer labs) and IT instructional labs. Academic fee funds support student workers in these two student support areas. In most instances, the students employed are OCOB students. As a result of the academic fee, we were able to increase the level of support provided to OCOB students.
Smart Classrooms
Since the summer of 2002, ongoing renovations continue in the OCOB. Major items include the modification of classroom space to increase our classroom functionality. Academic fee funds were used to equip these classrooms with "smart room technology" to insure that all of our classrooms are internet-ready with big screen projection capabilities. Five rooms were brought on-line or updated with equipment: 03-201, 03-204A, 03-204B, 21-133 and 03-300A.
OCOB Academic Fee Committee
All of the above would not have been accomplished if it were not for the outstanding work of the OCOB Academic Fee Committee. A very special thanks is owed to the OCOB students who stepped up to the challenge and stewarded the academic fee funds. They started their work in mid-April 2002 and provided recommendations to me in keeping with the proposal requirements. Their input, along with that gathered from a broad spectrum of students prior to the fee vote, has guided and will continue to guide the academic fee spending decisions. The Committee continues to work with me throughout the year to ensure their fee dollars are being put to good use. To see the OCOB academic fee spending plan please click the links below.) This is just the beginning as we work together to strengthen the OCOB advantage.
