FIVE YEAR REVIEW
The RCM Steering Committee Report to the Central Budget Committee is now available. Please click here to see the reccomendations. RCM Steering Committee Report. Any questions should be directed to David Proulx.
RCM has been under constant review before and after its implementation on July 1, 2000. During its developmental phase and first year of operations, the RCM Steering Committee monitored the model and made necessary modifications. The RCM website contains documents that outline the work and membership of the Steering Committee.
The ongoing responsibility for monitoring the RCM model was transferred to the Central Budget Committee (CBC) in FY02. In consultation with the CBC, the VPAA, and VPFA have periodically reviewed the model and recommended modifications to the President as appropriate. Examples include Library funding, UNHM tuition rates, UNHM allocations, assessments on grants, tuition weighting for honor and general education classes, hold harmless calculations, new program funding, square foot allocations, rate review, program moves, financial impact on grants, athletic scholarship funding and others. Discussions occur with the Deans Council, Central Budget Committee , Finance & Administration Council, Faculty Senate, Departmental Chairs, Student Fee Oversight Committee and any other unit or department that has concerns about the RCM model.
Scope of the Review
In FY06, after the completion of the fifth year of RCM, the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs will chair a Review Committee to assess the effectiveness of RCM as the university's budget management and resource allocation system. This will be an opportunity to consider the impacts of RCM and to identify areas where refinement of the model may be required. The Committee will submit its report and recommendations to the President by 6/30/06.
With the goals of the Academic Plan as the foundation, the review will analyze the extent to which UNH has or has not achieved greater efficiency and effectiveness in curriculum, research/outreach, and administration under RCM. Recognizing that it may be difficult to assign a causal relationship between the decentralized budget model and empirical evidence of change at UNH since FY01, specific questions that may be addressed include:
• Has RCM impacted academic quality? In what ways?
• Have interdisciplinary activities been affected? In what ways?
• Have research and outreach activities been affected? In what ways?
• Have centralized academic activities such as UROP, IROP, and Honors been affected? In what ways?
• Are there any aspects of the model itself that ought to be refined in the interest of fairness, simplicity, or strategic direction?
• Is there empirical and/or qualitative evidence that RCM has achieved its goals of encouraging cost effectiveness, resource generation, planning, and accountability?
Stages of the Fifth-Year Review
Stage One: Planning
In the fall of FY05, a team from the VPAA and VPFA offices will visit each RC unit to review and discuss RCM. These meetings will be open meetings coordinated through the RC unit director. From these meetings issues and themes will be gathered for specific review by the RCM review committee. To assist in guiding this early phase of the process and in finalizing plans for subsequent stages of the review, the VPAA will assemble a Stage One Committee, in consultation with the Faculty Senate and others. The Stage One Committee is comprised of the following individuals:
John Aber, Research and Public Service Office
Steve Bolander, Whittemore School of Business and Economics
Candace Corvey, Finance and Administration Office (Co-Chair)
Bruce Mallory, Provost's Office (Co-Chair)
Leigh Anne Melanson, Provost's Office
David Proulx, Finance and Administration Office
Don Quigley, Faculty Senate
Mark Rubinstein, Student and Academic Services
Christine Shea, Faculty Senate
P.T. Vasudevan, College of Engineering & Physical Sciences
Stage Two: Data Gathering and Analysis
In the spring and summer of FY05, the VPAA/VPFA team will collect, analyze, and prepare various data for presentation to the Committee. Trends from FY01-FY05 will be compared with trends from FY96-FY00. Suggested quantitative indicators include:
Curriculum Efficiency
• Distribution of class size
• New course development
• Courses no longer offered
• Teaching loads
• Faculty/student ratios by college
• Credit hours per faculty FTE by college
• New/eliminated majors
• Number of faculty
• Cost of instruction per credit hour by college
• Grade distributions
• Student outcome learning measures
• Graduate student enrollment
• Number of graduate students supported by external grants
Research/Outreach Efficiency
• Grant dollars per faculty FTE
• Indirect cost return
• Volume of documented outreach and engagement activities
• Interdisciplinary teaching and research activities
• Number of research faculty
Administrative Efficiency
• Number of staff
• Staff/faculty ratio
• RC Unit fund balance
• Net square foot of space per faculty/staff FTE
Stage Three: Data Review and Qualitative Information-Gathering
In the fall of FY06, the Committee will receive and discuss the data gathered in Stage Two, and request any additional information it may require. The Committee will conduct interviews, administer surveys, and make use of case studies to assess knowledge, perceptions, and impacts of RCM throughout UNH. Recommendations from internal and external program reviews will be taken into account. Information should be solicited from Vice Presidents, Deans, Associate Deans, Department Chairs, Faculty Senate, Research Directors from both inside and outside colleges, Staff Councils, RC Unit Heads and any other interested parties. At this stage some modeling of possible model refinements may commence.
Stage Four: Discussion, Analysis, Development of Conclusions and Recommendations
In the spring of FY06, the Committee will assess all the information gathered, request and assess the results of continued modeling of possible refinements, develop recommendations, and finalize its report. The report should include a recommendation for a long-term review cycle of RCM.
