Auroraadvocate.com - Chancellor calls for more university cooperation

by Dave O'Brien

Record-Courier Reporter

For too long, Northeast Ohio's four public universities -- Kent, Akron, Cleveland and Youngstown -- have competed for students and funding, rather than collaborated.

According to Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, "the close proximity and lack of population growth have made the schools intensely competitive, a competition which has not served the best interest of the state or region."

The chancellor wants all four to end their counter-productive competition, seek out distinct missions, create centers of excellence to drive regional economies and give up their seats on the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy board of trustees in favor of nine independent members selected by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Fingerhut made these comments and more in his 140-page report "Strategic Plan for Higher Education, 2008-2017," which he released to the public March 31.

In it, he lays out a plan to increase the quality, while decreasing the cost, of higher education in Ohio.

Also in the plan, the cost to attend an Ohio university would be among the lowest in the nation in 10 years under goals outlined to reverse the state's trend of high tuition and lower-than-average college attendance.

Lowering the costs for students would give more Ohioans access to higher education, according to Fingerhut.

NEOUCOM in Rootstown also will introduce CSU students into its bachelor's-medical doctorate degree program, work with Akron to create a program of orthopedics research using Akron's specialties in polymers and train new general practice doctors in the Cleveland area.

NEOUCOM President Lois Margaret Nora previously said the medical school is firmly committed to its Rootstown campus, to expanding to include CSU in its consortium and to educating future doctors in the region.

Comprehensive community college education also is key to Fingerhut's plan, with the chancellor calling for a new community college to be created in the under-served Mahoning Valley and affordable, quality college degrees available within 30 miles of every Ohio resident.

A more educated workforce, according to the report, means more and better jobs and will make Ohio a magnet for talent.

Higher education currently ranks 12th on the list of top industries in Ohio by employment numbers, with about 137,000 faculty and staff making $9.4 billion in salary and benefits, or the eighth most in wages for Ohio's top industries.

Almost half a million college students spend more than $6 billion on tuition, rooms, board, books and transportation, according to the report.

KSU President Lester Lefton said the university supports Fingerhut's "over-arching goal to raise the level of college attainment in Ohio, which translates into higher lifetime incomes for our citizens and economic stability for our state."

"We will work with the chancellor as the plan develops and remain engaged in the issues of funding and recommendations of the plan that might affect Kent State's eight-campus system directly," he added.

"The clear expectation is that Kent State will re-assert its defining mission as one of Ohio's four cornerstone public universities: a destination for high-achieving students, a place of world-class research and an asset to Ohio's economy now and in the future."

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