Joseph Steinmetz knows what he wants to do but hasn’t figured out how he will do it.
Steinmetz, 61, was named chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in October and moved into his new office in January. What Steinmetz wants to learn is where the money is and what it’s spent on.
“It’s pretty simple for me what I want to do,” said Steinmetz, who will be paid $700,000 annually. “We’re calculating this, and I’m trying to figure it out right now. I want to know what the ratio is of what we actually spend on faculty and students and what do we spend on the rest to run this place. Then, whatever it is, I want to improve on it.”
He said he plans to spend about three or four months meeting with academic leaders on campus to get a better understanding of the university — what makes it tick, in his favorite terminology.
“I think you’re able to take a Web page or brochures you’re handed and try to read about something; that doesn’t work for me,” Steinmetz said. “So I’m going out and meeting with every academic unit and then the rest of the units on campus.”
Steinmetz gave an example: If the UA is spending 65 percent of its budget on direct student expenses and 35 percent on administration, he wants to alter that ratio to 70-30. How to both pay for higher education while keeping it affordable for students is a dilemma many colleges and universities struggle with and a topic that came up repeatedly during Steinmetz’s interview process.
“This is maybe the most vexing problem for everybody,” Steinmetz said. “Every institution has their unique challenges, though, on that. It’s a mixture of what is your tuition level, what’s your state support level, how many grants do you have and grant funding. It’s really trying to figure out where this institution is positioned on that issue. I often think about the levers one could pull to address this, and I just don’t know the weighting on those levers.”
High Cost
Annual tuition and fees at the Fayetteville campus, the flagship of the University of Arkansas System, totaled $8,208 for in-state students and $20,299 for out-of-state students a year ago. Steinmetz said state funding is likely to remain static, and he doesn’t foresee a return to the days of significant tuition increases.
That means Arkansas would have to trim fat where there is not a lot of fat to begin with. Former Chancellor Dan Ferritor said Steinmetz’s biggest challenge will be making do with less, as Arkansas doesn’t have deep pockets compared, for instance, with Ohio State, where Steinmetz previously was executive vice president and provost.
“It’s a pretty bare-boned budget here at Arkansas compared to the way my last institution was funded,” Steinmetz said. “I don’t think there are a lot of things to cut. One thing we can say: Are we effectively using the funds that we have to invest in the things that really make a difference?”
Steinmetz isn’t against spending money, of course. He is just adamant about making sure that any money spent is spent to improve the school’s academic mission.
“When we do spend our money on our academic mission, I want to make sure it is invested to make the biggest impact on our students and faculty,” Steinmetz said. “What are the campus goals we want to establish that increase the reputation of the university and move us ahead? These are common goals and, by doing that, I think we will find where the overlaps are. Those are things I think if we invest in we can make big impacts.”
Enough Part-Timers
One way universities have attempted to cut expenses is hiring adjunct or part-time professors to teach classes for much less salary than tenure-track professors. The University of Arkansas had 169 adjuncts in fall 2015, an increase of 5.6 percent from 2013, and they earned between $3,000 and $5,000 per course taught.
The UA had 1,137 full-time professors in fall 2015.
Steinmetz hasn’t reached a conclusion yet, but he feels Arkansas has too many adjuncts. He understands their value and necessity but wants to make sure the university doesn’t overdo it.
“If we hire too many adjuncts we’re going to then lose our ability to make contributions on the research and outreach side,” Steinmetz said. “I do not see us increasing the number of adjunct faculty here. In my view it’s rather on the high side when I look at the benchmark institutions we like to compare ourselves to.
“Then the other fact is, if we do hire adjuncts, I want to make sure they’re treated equitably and they are actually rewarded for the big contributions they make. Some of our best teachers are actually adjuncts.”
Debt-Free Learning
Holding the line on tuition and fees should help alleviate the growing problem of debt that students find themselves burdened with years, sometimes decades, after graduating. Steinmetz said the university is undergoing another $1 billion capital campaign that will raise money to help students with scholarships and grants, which will help cushion the blow of tuition.
He is quick to point out that many expensive colleges, such as those in the Ivy League, have such deep scholarship pools that students rarely pay the sticker price to go to school.
“In that campaign, one of the things we have to concentrate on is funding for students, our student-scholarship base,” Steinmetz said. “It doesn’t matter what the tuition actually is if you help the students by providing scholarship funds or grants and those sorts of things. I’m actually interested in what the net cost to the student is more than what the tuition is.
“Nobody in the Ivies, for example, pays full freight because of their huge scholarship base. It looks interesting to have the $50,000 price tag but nobody pays that.”
Regardless of how much students pay to attend the UA, Steinmetz said, the university needs to continue to work on keeping students in class until graduation. Arkansas’ retention rate from first to second year for students is in the 80 percent range while its graduation rate is 67 percent.
Ohio State had a retention rate of 94 percent and a graduation rate in the 80s, Steinmetz said, but is quick to acknowledge that Ohio State’s demographics are different from Arkansas’ so what worked in Columbus might not apply in Fayetteville.
The high numbers, though, are a goal everyone at Arkansas should be shooting for.
“We have room where we can actually improve,” Steinmetz said. “We need to deal with the access issue, make sure Arkansans can come to school here. I think we can balance and create programs that help retention that will push that number up without having to become such an elite place that we miss what half of our mission is.
“That’s the great thing about the potential of universities. When a student comes here, there is a chance to succeed. We just have to figure out, almost individually, what is the formula for that kid to make it.”
Joseph Steinmetz
Age: 61
Education: Earned bachelor’s in psychology and master’s in experimental psychology from Central Michigan University; earned Ph.D. in physiological psychology from Ohio University.
1983-1985 Research fellow, Stanford University
1985-1987 Research associate, Stanford University
1987-1991 Assistant professor of Psychology, Indiana University
1991-1995 Associate professor of Psychology, Indiana University
1995-2006 Professor of Psychology, Indiana University
2006-2009 Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Science, University of Kansas
2009-2015 Executive Dean of Arts and Science, Ohio State University
2013-2015 Executive vice president and provost, Ohio State University