2007 Self-Study - University of Nevada, Reno

Challenges: Executive Summary
• The most pressing challenge to the University
is the need for increased and improved
space. Existing instructional space cannot
accommodate projected enrollment growth,
and is rapidly reaching capacity use. Existing
classrooms with fixed technology do not
meet the demand for large and small classroom
requests. Lack of adequate research
and creative studio space is negatively impacting
the University’s ability to compete
for grants, contracts, and new faculty. Indeed,
the shortage of quality research space
has led to a recent downgrading of the University’s
F&A rate. Regents policy expectations
that campus expansions and oftentimes
even major remodels must have
matching private funds strains campus resources
given the age of buildings on the
Reno campus compared to other system
members. This can lead to situations where
priorities shift to meet donor availability
rather than more objective campus instructional
and research space needs.
• Hiring of temporary instructors, who teach
primarily lower-division courses and especially
foundational courses in Math and
English, are funded mainly with temporary
salary savings. This has proven to be less
stable than the demand for lower-division
classes from an increasing student population.
Departments with major duties in the
Core Curriculum often bear the brunt of this
instability in funding. Any funding process
must also recognize the differential demands
for staffing experienced between units that
can meet demands with large lecture classes
and those that require more focused and instructor-intensive
approaches. The University
has made major efforts to provide an
adequate and stable funding base, but the
right mix of policy options is still being
formulated.
previous strategic planning process was a
comprehensive but at times cumbersome effort.
Strategic planning helped focus University
priorities and use of data, but tipped the
balance of collegial decision-making such
that faculty and staff often felt they did not
have a real voice in the process.
• The University has an excellent and dedicated
cadre of classified staff. However,
staffing levels have not kept pace with campus
growth in both students and research.
This leads to an extra burden carried by existing
staff. The problem is made worse as
salaries in the state classified system are often
not competitive locally.
• Funding for technology expansion and replacement
does not meet the demands of a
modern campus. While initial technology
investments are generally well-planned,
technology replacement is far more problematic
as no reliable funding base for technology
upgrades or replacements exists. The
Board of Regents, recognizing the vital need
in this area, has secured additional state
funding but more is needed.
• There is a need to better define the roles of
the system administration and campus administration.
While the two entities have a
generally strong and cooperative working
relationship, there is a need to better standardize
interpretation of policies and bylaws,
and to establish better timelines for
policy review.
• External reviews have indicated that the
quality of graduate education varies with
two root causes contributing to lower quality:
(1) inadequate graduate-level curricular
offerings and (2) faculty resources that are
stretched too thin.
• The challenge in the next phase of strategic
planning is to balance the greatly enhanced
information and assessment abilities of the
University with a process that better integrates
the entire campus community. The
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