More Medical Center Cuts

[DFW HOYA]

From the Georgetown Voice. Remember, the Medical center lost $20M this past year.

"Because we have not yet achieved all of the expense reductions we hoped for, we now project an FY '05 deficit in the range of $25 to $29 million," [DeGioia] said. "From the Board's perspective, this makes it look like the situation is getting worse, not better."

And this quote sums it up:

"To date, the Medical Center has reported a cumulative loss of $333 million from fiscal years 1995 to 2004."


www.georgetownvoice.com/news/2004/09/09/News/Medical.Center.Lays.Off.65.Employees.To.Cut.Deficit-714453.shtml

[SFHoya99]

They've had a lot of time to fix the problems. Are they considering shutting it down?

[reformation]

Wasn't the "cleaning up" of the med center one of the most important justifications for elevating GiGioia to pres

GU should explore merging the med school with another institution, not just the hospital. While they're at it we should definitely do the same thing with the non professional school graduate programs. The current strategy for these parts of the univ is leading nowhere.

[Penarol1916]

reformation said:

GU should explore merging the med school with another institution, not just the hospital. While they're at it we should definitely do the same thing with the non professional school graduate programs. The current strategy for these parts of the univ is leading nowhere.

Really? What is the problem with the non-professional grad school programs?

[reformation]

1)Barring a major infusion(like a billion +) of cash to support PHD programs, GU does not have the resources to offer top tier PHD programs.
2)Its pretty hard to justify PHD programs that are not 10, maybe top 20 with a real chance at being top 10. Non elite phd programs generally do not attract top students or place the students that they have in top jobs. I think we have 1 or 2 top 20 programs and no top 10 programs.
3)It would be better to concentrate GU's faculty resources on the undergrads and forge some kind of JV with somebody like hopkins for PHD programs where it makes sense
4)the existing offering of GU phd programs seems pretty ad hoc and seems hard to see how it is additive to the university's overall mission

[Nevada Hoya]

Georgetown Med in the news today with their women's health study:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18968-2004Sep13.html

[Penarol1916]

reformation said:

1)Barring a major infusion(like a billion +) of cash to support PHD programs, GU does not have the resources to offer top tier PHD programs.
2)Its pretty hard to justify PHD programs that are not 10, maybe top 20 with a real chance at being top 10. Non elite phd programs generally do not attract top students or place the students that they have in top jobs. I think we have 1 or 2 top 20 programs and no top 10 programs.
3)It would be better to concentrate GU's faculty resources on the undergrads and forge some kind of JV with somebody like hopkins for PHD programs where it makes sense
4)the existing offering of GU phd programs seems pretty ad hoc and seems hard to see how it is additive to the university's overall mission

Maybe it's because I deal with research focused Universities, but most PhD programs are fairly self-sustaining due to grants and the like for professors to fill with PhD students, at least that is how my dad and most professors I know get graduate students. As far as focusing faculty resources on undergrads, I can tell you one big reason why that is not a good idea, you cannot attract good faculty that way. Most decent faculty want to teach grad students because that is where they themselves can learn something new, plus you don't have to deal with teaching required courses to students who don't necessarily want to be there. Are these programs losing a significant amount of money? I have no idea, and that is what I was really asking.

[reformation]

The argument that you put forward regarding needing PHD programs to attract top faculty isn't necessarily true, if it were true places like williams,amherst , (even dartmouth doesn't have phd programs in a lot of disciplines) would not have top faculties. Its true that if you do have a really top phd program that would be a big + in attracting top faculty, but I seriously doubt that mediocre phd programs add that much to attracting academic talent. I would find it hard to believe that a lot of GU's existing prof's came here beacuse of the phd programs.


If we eliminated the phd programs(some at least) we could probably, A)reduce the faculty teaching load(which matters a lot in attracting faculty and doing research), B)possibly pay faculty a little better, which also matters a lot in attracting faculty, C)really focus on making the undergrad program excellent overall--its pretty good but could honestly be a bit better in spots


Also I think that we would be well served to explore offering joint phd programs with another institution(that is very good), this way we could really have the faculty participate in top class PHD programs, without the full resource drain--obvious candidate is Hopkins, but others could work.. Other univ's have started doing it--if this could work we would really have the best of both worlds--I just don't think that the status quo is getting the univ anywhere in this regard.

[Penarol1916]

reformation said:

The argument that you put forward regarding needing PHD programs to attract top faculty isn't necessarily true, if it were true places like williams,amherst , (even dartmouth doesn't have phd programs in a lot of disciplines) would not have top faculties. Its true that if you do have a really top phd program that would be a big + in attracting top faculty, but I seriously doubt that mediocre phd programs add that much to attracting academic talent. I would find it hard to believe that a lot of GU's existing prof's came here beacuse of the phd programs.


If we eliminated the phd programs(some at least) we could probably, A)reduce the faculty teaching load(which matters a lot in attracting faculty and doing research), B)possibly pay faculty a little better, which also matters a lot in attracting faculty, C)really focus on making the undergrad program excellent overall--its pretty good but could honestly be a bit better in spots


Also I think that we would be well served to explore offering joint phd programs with another institution(that is very good), this way we could really have the faculty participate in top class PHD programs, without the full resource drain--obvious candidate is Hopkins, but others could work.. Other univ's have started doing it--if this could work we would really have the best of both worlds--I just don't think that the status quo is getting the univ anywhere in this regard.

Um, I don't know how much you know about PhD. programs, but there really is not very much teaching, and in most institutions it is more advising. Eliminating the PhD program increases the faculty teaching load, because now where are the professor's TA's and research assistants coming from? It kills research. Amherst and Williams have strong teaching professors, but not very strong research professors, because they are devoted to undergrads.

If you want Georgetown to become devoted to strong undergrad education and nothing else, which is what will happen without a PhD. program in many disciplines. If that is the case then Georgetown needs to completely refocus its efforts and shoot for being a liberal arts Williams or Carleton type school and to do that they need to cut down on the undergrad population, or substantially expand the faculty pool, which cutting PhD. programs is not likely to provide the resources for since as I stated before, they usually are not huge cost problems.

As I said before, I'm not that familiar with the specifics of Georgetown, but every school I've seen (and I do underwriting for bonds issued by a number of Universities and have a decent background going back to childhood with these things) even the mediocre PhD. programs are pretty self-sustaining and don't bleed cash. If the situation at Georgetown is different (which is what I asked in my original question) I would love to get some specifics about how many of the programs are losing money and how much money they are losing.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

I like the idea of joint PhD programs, where applicable, but cutting PhD's in general seems to be missing the issue. Georgetown's deficits aren't coming from the main campus. Additionally, cutting research programs will have negative effects on the undergraduate rankings, by lowering the university's academic prestige, and consequently, the peer assessment scores on the US News survey.

[Nevada Hoya]

This is an interesting thread and one which debates the whole future directions that Georgetown will take. I don't think the university can abandon the med school completely, even though it has been an albatross for the past 10-20 years. I think when they cut out the dental school the dental grads felt abandoned by the university. I think the med school does some great things and for Georgetown to be associated with it is important. Why are they losing so much money even with the new arrangement?

As far as grad school goes, they may want to be selective in the Ph.D. programs they keep. If they are going to have the med school, I feel they should keep the biology and chemistry Ph.D. programs. These programs should be very involved with some of the research in the med school. As a chemist, I have seen my discipline evolve into an adjunct for the life sciences. Many universities have changed their chem dept to the department of chemistry and biochemistry or chemical biology or other forms relating the life sciences. On the other hand physics and math may be the departments on the chopping block. To tell the truth, I don't even know if these departments have Ph.D. programs even now.

[reformation]

Penarol, I think that I have a pretty good knowledge of grad programs in general, fyi i've taught at two of the Ivy's and U London in their grad schools.

Most academics would judge the research quality of the Amherst-Williams faculty to be at least at the level of GU in most fields, I think that your assertion on this pt. is a bit off base. (they are not not har stan berkley equiv's , but neither is gu) I also checked the GU course listings in fields that have grad programs like hist, chem, govt, phil, econ etc and there are a lot of "taught" grad courses which I bet suck up a lot of faculty time.

Regarding ta's etc, you could easily get them from advanced undergards or other schools. Also Gu does not seem to utilize post docs, they could at least explore this.

As far as costs go, I don't and I seriously doubt that Gtwn does have the info in a readily available format to allocate costs for depts to grad and undergrad programs.--my argument is not strictly a cost saving thing--I would simply like the univ to focus on core areas of strength and shoot for real quality, and neither the med school or grad school are cutting it in this regard--therefore I think thast we should take a serious look at a new approach, i.e., partnering up with an institution that does these types of education really well would really boost both the perception and the reality of the quality of Gtwn's faculty, research and offerings. The same old arguments about the need for grad offerings even if mediocre to attract faculty are used by people to protect the staus quo and justify mediocre performance and unsound objectives--people should not fall for them

one last thing, GU's location provides a big oppty for faculty rsrch affiliations outside of trad grad programs i.e., brookings, fed world bank, Iadb etc set al for policy type stuff, NIH + Nav rsrch lab etc for science stuff

[TrueHoyaBlue]

reformation said:

Most academics would judge the research quality of the Amherst-Williams faculty to be at least at the level of GU in most fields, I think that your assertion on this pt. is a bit off base. (they are not not har stan berkley equiv's , but neither is gu)

A fair point, although it ignores the fact that being an Amherst or a Williams is far from what Georgetown is trying to do. Amherst and Williams (and Swarthmore, and Bowdoin, etc.) are small liberal arts colleges, that focus almost completely on undergraduate teaching when making their faculty hires. For Georgetown to attempt to go down that route would be an enormous departure from the trajectory of the University over the last 25 years, a change in focus that would likely remove the words "research university" from GU's mission statement.

Georgetown, in the eyes of U.S. News and World Report, as well as in the eyes of most of its students and alumni, is a "National University," competing (albeit from a much smaller resource base) against the Berkeleys, the Vanderbilts, the Notre Dames, and the Emorys of the world, as well as the Ivies, etc. USN&WR has a completely separate category for the Amhersts and the Williams of the country, because they are judged on a completely different set of criteria, and because students choose to attend school there for a completely different set of reasons than those who would come to a Georgetown.

[Penarol1916]

reformation said:

Penarol, I think that I have a pretty good knowledge of grad programs in general, fyi i've taught at two of the Ivy's and U London in their grad schools.

Most academics would judge the research quality of the Amherst-Williams faculty to be at least at the level of GU in most fields, I think that your assertion on this pt. is a bit off base. (they are not not har stan berkley equiv's , but neither is gu) I also checked the GU course listings in fields that have grad programs like hist, chem, govt, phil, econ etc and there are a lot of "taught" grad courses which I bet suck up a lot of faculty time.

Regarding ta's etc, you could easily get them from advanced undergards or other schools. Also Gu does not seem to utilize post docs, they could at least explore this.

As far as costs go, I don't and I seriously doubt that Gtwn does have the info in a readily available format to allocate costs for depts to grad and undergrad programs.--my argument is not strictly a cost saving thing--I would simply like the univ to focus on core areas of strength and shoot for real quality, and neither the med school or grad school are cutting it in this regard--therefore I think thast we should take a serious look at a new approach, i.e., partnering up with an institution that does these types of education really well would really boost both the perception and the reality of the quality of Gtwn's faculty, research and offerings. The same old arguments about the need for grad offerings even if mediocre to attract faculty are used by people to protect the staus quo and justify mediocre performance and unsound objectives--people should not fall for them

one last thing, GU's location provides a big oppty for faculty rsrch affiliations outside of trad grad programs i.e., brookings, fed world bank, Iadb etc set al for policy type stuff, NIH + Nav rsrch lab etc for science stuff

I've never met an academic who has put any stock into research done at a Williams or Amherst. The only researcher worth anything in their field at those types of schools is Andrew Zimbalist. Of course GU isn't at the level of huge research Universities, but I don't know why it can't be a step below say a Wash U.
Also, most of those "taught" grad classes involve masters degrees rather PhD. candidates, which you did not include in your original statement. Since you've taught at these institutions I'll assume you have a PhD. know how many classes it takes before you take your comps and start on your dissertation. Again, you cannot underestimate the appeal of teaching and researching with grad students to a large number faculty, you have to know tons of great professors who are completely fed up with teaching required undergrad classes and do so because it allows them the chance to work with grad students and have research assistents as well.
I'm not referring to costs so much as what resources specifically these programs drain. To me the time faculty spends teaching them isn't really sufficient, because that is what most faculty prefer doing anyway. As far as getting costs nearly every institution can break down its P&L's to find out if its graduate programs are draining money, even an Illinois Institute of Technology.
Everything you advocate suggests to me that you want to go to a small liberal arts college type strategy, which is fine, but it is going to cost a lot of money (either in reducing tuition money as the undergrad population decreases or increasing the faculty pool), and I would like to know where you think that money would come from?
As far as using advanced undergrads as TA's, those have been a disaster at a lot of institutions I've seen, and institutions use them because there are not enough Grads to teach their courses, what makes you think that institutions that already don't have sufficient grad student TA's have any to spare for Georgetown? As far as your last point, that leads to an adjunct type situation, which I think is great, some of my favorite profs at G-town worked at the World Bank and think tanks, but that does not increase prestige. I think your idea of partnering up with another institution is somewhat interesting, but just to play devil's advocate, what exactly would a Johns Hopkins have to gain by partnering up with GU? What does GU offer if it is just a mediocre program?

[reformation]

The MA-PHD programs have to be looked at together, evaluating the taught course PHD prerequisites from from the research phd courses does not make any sense.

My point about accessing the washington rsrch community was not to hire a bunch more adjuncts, but that GU profs have acccesss to do high quality rsrch outside of campus that prof's in a lot of other schools don't have

As far as the liberal arts college model (+ presumably the professional schools) goes, maybe-If GU can realistically go the traditional route to gradually build top 10 type grad programs then great, go for it. If that is not a realistic option then I think that we have to rethink carefully how we do grad education-same goes for the med ctr.. Hey if Gtwn said lets focus on lets -say 5 disciplines and build really elite programs(and do it not just say it), I'd say maybe that makes sense and lets have full blown grad programs for these disciplines--I just don't see that type of clear direction at the school


As far as a JV with someone like hopkins, GU would bring an attractive location in DC, good faculty in some disciplines and the ability to share some costs. Higher ed is becoming increasingly competitive, I think that they would listen carefully to a well thought out proposal(Outside of the med school I'm sure that they could also use some help)

[Penarol1916]

reformation said:

The MA-PHD programs have to be looked at together, evaluating the taught course PHD prerequisites from from the research phd courses does not make any sense.

My point about accessing the washington rsrch community was not to hire a bunch more adjuncts, but that GU profs have acccesss to do high quality rsrch outside of campus that prof's in a lot of other schools don't have

As far as the liberal arts college model (+ presumably the professional schools) goes, maybe-If GU can realistically go the traditional route to gradually build top 10 type grad programs then great, go for it. If that is not a realistic option then I think that we have to rethink carefully how we do grad education-same goes for the med ctr.. Hey if Gtwn said lets focus on lets -say 5 disciplines and build really elite programs(and do it not just say it), I'd say maybe that makes sense and lets have full blown grad programs for these disciplines--I just don't see that type of clear direction at the school


As far as a JV with someone like hopkins, GU would bring an attractive location in DC, good faculty in some disciplines and the ability to share some costs. Higher ed is becoming increasingly competitive, I think that they would listen carefully to a well thought out proposal(Outside of the med school I'm sure that they could also use some help)

To me you don't really have to shoot for a top ten type grad school in disciplines, what is really key is to find a niche that can be filled. I'll use Wash. U. as an example, they have built a very strong econ department, but the graduate program is not top 10, what they've done is become THE outstanding school in property rights economics and a focal point in research for neo-institutional economics, which has become extremely hot, they've produced a Nobel Prize winner in Douglas North and has been become a breeding ground for professors to teach this subject in departments all over the country and it is a cash cow with a lot of fellowships and grants for the research they conduct. To me that is how you can create a quality grad school without obsessing about rankings or having to shovel a bunch of money to get the top researchers in every field, which is how you get into those rankings.
As far as the joint venture, I was under the impression that Hopkins had a satellite grad campus in DC already for some programs, plus its top notch programs (which would be the ones we would want to partner with) should already be generating more than enough cash to not have to worry about sharing costs, as for the others, why would we want to join together two mediocre programs?
As far as the research opportunities that DC offers, I still think that even if they come in primarily as professors, they end up becoming something like adjuncts if they are taking their research seriously.

[reformation]

Wash U has a $4bn endowment-similar to Columbia's--if gtwn had similar resources its options would be different too-picking a few narrow specialities that you can be good at may or may not have a real institutional impact and is not inconsitent with I'm saying. Unfortunately GU has a tendency to focus on a lot of unique things that are not terribly significant, remember that if you define your field narrowly enough it is not that hard to say that you are good at it.

As far as Hopkins goes you really don't know unless you speak with them.

As far as research related to think tanks go, I'd like to point out that Rand Corp has a really top quality, innovative grad program in policy research associated with its LA hdqtrs(its worth checking out GU could learn a lot from the economical design and rigor of Rand's program. Rand for instance has a DC outpost--I'd love to see them explore something with Rand. In fact Rand is setting up a joint center for latin American studies with U. Miami(not exactly a rsrch powerhouse, but geographically desirable--Gtwn should have been a candidate for this)
If GU had been more on the ball, maybe Rand might have done this with GU-maybe not but it doesn't hurt to be in the mix. Being satisfied with making incremental improvements to the status quo is not a feasible strategy for GU, too many other univ's are aggressively looking for ways to improve themselves