The State Board of Higher Education decided to request an $85 million investment plan from the state government to improve Oregon’s engineering and computer science programs during its meeting on Oct. 20 at Southern Oregon University in Ashland.
Board members voted 10-1 to approve the plan that will use state and private funds to gradually move engineering programs into the nation’s top tier of higher education institutions. The plan will be incorporated into the Oregon University System’s total budget request, which is due at Gov. Kitzhaber’s office by Nov. 1.
“I personally voted for it because I’m convinced [Oregon] needs top engineering and computer science programs,” said Board Member Tom Imeson.
He said the board still has a lot of work to finish before it sends the final version of the total higher education budget, but he said the first steps towards improving engineering education have been made.
“We’re going to put [Oregon] on a path for the top tier,” he said.
According to information released by the OUS, the investment plan requests $10.63 million each biennium. That amount will be matched by private funding for a total of $21.2 million, which will supplement $30 million in state and private funds that have already been earmarked for engineering.
Oregon State University will be the chief recipient of the engineering funds because the school already confers more than half of the state’s engineering degrees. The University of Oregon stands to receive about $8.5 million each biennium for its computer and information science department.
University chemistry professor and board member Geri Richmond, however, took issue with the plan. Richmond cast the lone dissenting vote because she said the plan did not effectively promote what she considered “excellence.”
“I didn’t think it focused on excellence,” she said. “It didn’t have quality ideas. I just didn’t see in the proposal the quality of state engineering that I’m used to seeing.”
In addition to not reaching Richmond’s expectations, the plan also attempts to complete too much with too little, she said.
“There’s not enough focus on excellence, and it really is trying to do too much,” she said.
Despite her misgivings, Richmond said she will still respect the board’s decision.
Tom Anderes, OUS vice chancellor for finance and administration, said that even though the first funding request for the plan is minuscule in comparison to the total higher education budget of $1.45 billion, it will eventually help make significant strides in engineering education.
The first step in the plan, Anderes said, will involve schools hiring new faculty and graduate assistants to develop the infrastructure to support the planned improvements in engineering. He said the drive to join the ranks of the top engineering schools will take time, but it is an attainable goal.
“This is a gradual process,” he said. “It is something for all the institutions that will take time. There are no overwhelming sorts of impacts until we’re going into the second biennium or the third biennium.”
Anderes said it will be up to the individual schools to raise the private funding through donors, scholarships, tuition and fees, and research grants.
Computer and information science department associate professor Virginia Lo said her department is “very excited about getting more resources from the state.”
She said the department has already received a $1 million research grant from the National Science Foundation and a grant from Intel Corp. for more classes and a new lab in Klamath Hall. The grants will help fund the department’s work in studying how to ensure quality audio and video broadcasts over the Internet, as well as its joint studies with the biology department in using the Internet to aid genetic research.
The most important impact of the investment plan, Lo said, is that it will provide the funds for desperately needed faculty.
“We really need more faculty in our department because the demand for computer science majors has just exploded,” she said.