SMU’s board of trustees will consider a proposal for a new School of Education and Human Development at its meeting Thursday and Friday.
According to the proposal, this school is designed to unite the current programs in the Division of Education and Lifelong Learning (DELL) “under a common mission and shared goals” as well as expand to include other degree or certificate programs.
Existing programs include teaching certifications, graduate studies, research, dispute resolution, evening studies, summer session and continuing studies.
The new school would organize these programs and new ones into six areas: office of the dean, department of teaching and learning, department of literacy and language acquisition, department of human development, division of lifelong learning, and institute for reading research.
The proposal provoked a variety of opinions from campus leaders and faculty who have had concerns about the new school’s funding, standards for tenure, administration and overall vision. The proposal morphed through several revisions over the last year as President R. Gerald Turner and Provost Ross C. Murfin and the faculty senate worked together to make it a viable option.
“It was a good example of shared governance,” said Christine Buchanan, president of the faculty senate and professor of biological sciences, speaking of the administration’s responsiveness to faculty concerns.
Regarding the financial issues that surround the proposal, Murfin said that the new school would be a “profit-making entity.” As it is, DELL brings in as much money through research as Dedman College or the School of Engineering, Murfin said. It has also been awarded an endowed chair for reading research from Texas Instruments and multiple monetary awards for programs such as LEAP for Dallas Kids, Head Start and learning therapy.
“They wouldn’t be getting the money if they didn’t have the intellectual capital to attract it,” Murfin said.
The proposal projects that the current programs will generate between $600,000 and $900,000 in each of the next three years, of which SMU plans to budget $300,000 to the new school and $300,000 to the provost for planning future-year commitments and supporting programs. Any additional money could go either to the new school or to the university, Murfin said. The new school would also transition from paying rent and other overhead costs to the university for use of its facilities, on the main campus and at SMU-in-Legacy, to paying a tax, as the other schools do, to be part of the university.
External donations for the new school could also be an issue, suggested Glenn Linden, member of the faculty senate and associate professor of history. Linden came to SMU with a joint appointment to the history department and the previous education program and has chaired both.
“I have always been in favor of a school of education,” he said. “But there was not support for it in earlier years. Now it appears that we do have support.”
While he is “cautiously optimistic,” Linden said the new school seems to depend on outside funding.
“My constituents are concerned that it will take money away from other areas,” he said.
Adding to this concern is the fact that SMU could potentially win the bid for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Other Texas schools, including Texas A&M, UT and Baylor are also vying for it, and the timetable is still undetermined.
The Bush Library would most likely bring with it an educational school focusing on subjects like public policy, economics and political science. Though the presidential library and accompanying school will most likely be funded through its foundation and donations, Linden noted that it could possibly detract from money given to the new school or SMU’s other existing schools.
Murfin said he believes there are foundations and individuals that have not had an area to give to previously that will be interested in donating to schools of education, analogous to the fact that the people who tend to give money to athletics may not choose to fund liberal arts. In addition, Murfin said that the two schools would have “synergy” with each other through interdisciplinary study, joint appointments or exchange programs. Plus, both schools would be smaller in size, although not small when it comes to research and quality of education, he said.
Other concerns about the new school of education involved tenure standards and degree-granting ability. Murfin explained that granting degrees to DELL students when the division is not an official school is difficult. It requires a faculty vote from two additional schools, Dedman and Meadows School of the Arts, that have faculty teaching in DELL. The new school of education would be able to grant degrees to its students, and it will offer more degrees and attract higher quality faculty, he said.
Most of the current faculty in DELL are lecturers, which means they are neither expected to nor rewarded for research and are not on a tenure track. They also receive no representation in faculty senate because DELL is not officially a school. The new school would offer more tenured positions, at the same standards the university currently enforces, and allow representation in the senate, Murfin said.
Overall, a new school is needed to provide structure for the programs and faculty, Buchanan said.
“It’s obviously a work in progress. Approval is just the first step,” she said. Buchanan emphasized that the new school must operate with academic integrity, fiscal responsibility and shared governance for it to be successful.
To Murfin, the new school would help SMU’s reputation by breaking down “the bubble” and making SMU a “private university and public partner.” Buchanan said it would improve “town-gown” relations in a community that is “begging for it.”
“The community is like a living laboratory,” she said, full of people looking for high-quality higher education. “The university should be a part of the community in which it resides.”
Linden said the new school would “put us back in the education business.” But, he said, “It’s a big bite.”
The trustee committee on academic policy, planning and management will discuss the proposal on Thursday, and the board will come to a final decision when it meets on Friday.
