The fate of one University Unity

Former University President Martin Meyerson appraised the University's academic and fiscal situation in January 1972, two years after taking office -- and concluded that its condition was critical. Philadelphia's leading bank had just revoked the University's line of credit and the disaffection endemic to higher education during the turbulent '60s was only beginning to abate. "This much is certain," said Meyerson, who is now a professor emeritus at the University, at the time. "We simply cannot continue as before." To alter the University's state of affairs and in hopes of averting future difficulties, Meyerson proposed three options: making the University a state-related institution, cutting University activities, salaries and expenses or embarking on an unprecedented capital campaign. Although he "strongly favored" the third option, Meyerson stressed the fact that only in conjunction with improved undergraduate and graduate education could a capital campaign insure the University's continued viability. Meyerson charged the University Development Commission -- an investigative body composed of students and faculty members from disciplines throughout the University -- with the task of choosing from the three options. The commission issued its report, entitled Pennsylvania: One University, a year later. The report made recommendations that cut across departments and schools, aiming instead at unifying the University into a cohesive, interconnected whole. "The concept of One University is based on the conclusion that our greatest potential strength and uniqueness lies both in our historic linkage of professional education with the liberal arts and sciences, and in our contemporary advantage of the close physical proximity of our schools on one campus," the report states. Current University President Judith Rodin said even now, more than 20 years later, she agrees with the commission's conclusions. "This is an institution that really has the opportunity to be one University because of the geographical proximity of all of the schools," she said. "This isn't true of our peer Ivy League institutions -- some have as many schools as we do, but none has them all on one campus. "It's an amazing strength, one that we really have to take advantage of for the benefit of our instruction and research," Rodin added. But implementation of the One University concept has not been met with complete praise. Present administrators and faculty members say the guidelines of the University's fiscal management strategy, called responsibility-centered budgeting, have made it difficult to achieve the report's goals. Responsibility-centered budgeting was instituted to increase the University's educational quality, provide a strong base for new fund-raising and insure long-term survival. "It's kind of ironic that a report that identified these strengths also set up mechanism that diminished them," said Mathematics Professor Gerald Porter, past chairperson of the Faculty Senate. A type of cost-centered accounting, responsibility-centered budgeting sets spending "targets" for money-making departments or programs and limits the expenditures of their counterparts without balanced budgets, according to Vice President of Finance Stephen Golding. "Basically, [responsibility-centered budgeting] is the recognition that the schools and centers [at the University] are individual operating units, with responsibility for generating sufficient revenues to meet their programmatic requirements and to cover their on-going, day-to-day expenditures," Golding said. "It has evolved over time into a management philosophy where the schools raise their own endowment, and generate revenues through their own programmatic enhancements," he added. Porter said the budgeting system is a double-edged sword. "In many ways, responsibility-centered budgeting is a very good thing, because it puts financial control at the level of the school," Porter said. "On the other hand, it's become a management system that provides incentives for schools to act independently of the University." Nursing professor Barbara Lowery, chairperson of the Faculty Senate this year, agreed with Porter. "Although many will say it doesn't happen, schools may not allow students into other programs because they'll lose tuition money," Lowery said. "The budget system needs honing." An integral component of responsibility-centered budgeting, according to Golding, is the "central university subvention pool" -- funds set aside and allocated by the provost to provide departments with equal access to general University services, regardless of their individual financial positions. But Provost Stanley Chodorow said responsibility-centered budgeting "tends to create independent units, corresponding to the budget centers, and to limit the ability of the provost to move resources from place to place in accord with a set of University-wide priorities." And according to Porter, the introduction of responsibility-centered budgeting decreased the strength of the University's central administration. "You've created a new financial federalism, taken power away from the provost," he said. "The schools act autonomously in many ways, except when they run into financial problems and they come running to the provost." Responsibility-centered budgeting is causing renewed concern on campus now because of cutbacks in funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a decline in the University's unrestricted revenues, and the prevailing economic downturn, Golding said. "Responsibility-centered budgeting does pit schools and centers against each other in competition for scarce resources, and in that environment you end up making decisions on financial grounds, rather than programmatic grounds," he added. Despite its flaws, Meyerson said he believes the One University report had a tangible impact on the University. "There was a fair amount of opposition to the Development Commission at the start," Meyerson said last week. "By and large, though, faculty, staff and students were pleased [with its work]." Legacies of commission proposals affect almost every area of university life, from the official school calendar to the technological and audio-visual needs of the library system. They include: ·Integrated academic programs such as Management and Technology and International Studies, which permit students to draw simultaneously on the resources of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Engineering School and the Wharton School. ·The division of the Quadrangle into four first-year houses -- Upper Quad, Spruce Street, Butcher-Speakman-Class of '28 and Community House -- and the establishment of Ware and Modern Languages College Houses, which have added a learning component to living on campus. Meyerson said the University modeled its houses on the residential colleges of Yale University and the college house system in use at Harvard University. ·The Freshman Seminar program and research-oriented University Scholars program, which provide undergraduates with increased access to faculty members. In addition, Meyerson urged the commission to raise money for 100 endowed professorships, since the 91 chairs that existed in 1972 were "underendowed and?unfilled too long," according to the report. ·The creation of the Office of International Programs, which has encouraged growing numbers of students to study abroad, while bringing numerous international students and scholars to the University. "I had worked very closely with the commission on all of these matters," Meyerson said. "My whole career had been an effort to cross disciplines, and I was determined that we would do that at Penn. "One of the suggestions of the rubric of One University is the crossing of disciplinary and professional lines," he added, explaining that he has taught in fields ranging from public policy and university history to city planning during his career. Porter, agreeing with Meyerson, emphasized the importance of the University's ability to create intelligent connections between separate schools and programs. "We want to attract the best students to the University, so we have to find our own niche," he said. "Our niche is the combination of professional and liberal arts education, and that's the only way we're going to succeed." Lowery said the University needs to build on its established strengths in the area of undergraduate education. "We have a lot of wonderful links, which undergraduates experience in their dual-degrees and research," she said. "We do pretty well, but we could do better." Responsibility-centered budgeting has changed a lot since its inception, Golding said. He added that today's version, based on "one-year smoothing" -- where one-year old financial data is used in calculations -- is more effective than the original set of cost algorithms used in the early 1970s. "Responsibility-centered budgeting has shown its ability to adapt to the changing environment," Golding said. But responsibility-centered budgeting is not perfect, according to Rodin. "We're involved in a consultation about our management structures," she said. "Everything is on the table." Meyerson said he looks forward to the new ideas Rodin and Chodorow will infuse into the University. "It may be that we've gotten too large in some parts of the University and some parts of our undergraduate education," he said. "Undergraduate education constantly requires a new lens, and I think this is about to happen."

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