Trustees to hear final recommendations on Regional Campuses

By Abigail Kelly, For The Miami Student

Miami's Board of Trustees will be meeting Friday to hear the final recommendations from the Regional Campuses' task force and final process committee that President David Hodge convened last October.

In the January 26 issue of the Journal-News, President Hodge published a guest column explaining his goals for the task force and process committee, and what he hopes for the future of the regional campuses.

"The key recommendations under review will give the Miami Regionals more autonomy in curriculum development and modification, new degree development options and a governance structure that fully enfranchises current and future faculty and staff members on the regional campuses," Hodge wrote.

To help increase enrollment and financial security for the regional campuses, the task force laid out a plan in their final report published last November.

They recommend the university to keep their focus on adding four-year bachelor degrees to the regional campuses and supporting regional students who are relocating to the Oxford campus.

Many ideas went back and forth with the task force consisting of faculty and students from all three campuses. The task force looked at other universities' branch programs and spoke to community members to hopefully find ways to change the current structure.

Though these possible changes seem good for the regional campuses, community members fear there will be a divide created because of ideas about distinguishing the regional campuses from Oxford because of distinguishing the regional campuses are currently not allowed to offer the traditional degrees, such as English and Psychology. If they do however, there will be a distinction on the diploma of which campus in where the degree was earned.

However, the regional campuses will continue to be a part of Miami's Identity. One of the decisions announced on April 13 was for the regional campuses to not seek separate accreditation of the regional campuses from Oxford, and to find new ways of improvement.

Associate Dean of the Regional Campuses Moria Casey was a co-chair for the task force that looked at other schools' regional campuses structures both with individual and combined accreditation.

"Accreditation does not seem to be related to how successful or autonomous a regional campus can be," Casey said.

Chair for the Regional Campuses Process Committee and Associate Provost for Research and Scholarship James Oris said he believes these recommendations are important for all the Miami campuses.

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"Miami is one university, and the regional campuses are an integral part of the university," Oris said.

Casey agrees that these recommendations are an important part of Miami's future and will provide opportunities for all students.

"Miami is highly respected in this region for the high quality teaching and learning that happens here," Casey said. "Miami's regional campuses provide that high-quality education to students who would otherwise not be able to attend or start at the Oxford campus. What the regional campuses do and the students they serve is crucial to Miami's entire mission as a public university."

If the board of trustees approves the recommendations, a team will be created during the 2015-2016 school year to work on establishing structures for academic division and departments at the regional campuses.