A public institution nurtures strengths, avoids trendy new programs

By PAUL FAIN

Clemson, S.C.

Colleges are fond of issuing proclamations filled with ambitious goals. So Clemson University was hardly charting new territory in 2001 when its Board of Trustees endorsed 27 goals to make it a top-20 public research university.

Less than two years later, Clemson achieved one of those benchmarks by exceeding $100-million per year in research sponsored by outside sources. Then something strange happened. Instead of giddily setting another, bigger research target, the university considered slowing down.

Clemson's president, James F. Barker, says he and trustees met to discuss "What is the right number, and why?"

While $200-million in annual research was achievable, the board and Mr. Barker decided on $150-million.

"We will lose more than we would gain" by going higher, Mr. Barker says, particularly in the quality of teaching for undergraduates. "It's not worth it."

Clemson's cautious approach is certainly rare, and maybe even provocative, given higher education's fever for unchecked growth. Research universities are constantly jockeying for higher rankings, better facilities, and more star professors. That drives an unquenchable thirst for new money from tuition and other sources. The conventional wisdom holds that no president wants to miss out on building a research center that could give the university a leg up on peers in prestige and money.

But some higher-education experts are asking whether all the spending is sustainable. And other major research universities are joining Clemson in taking a more conservative approach to growth. (See "Staying Agile — Despite Its Size.")

Typically, however, presidential ambition takes shape in numbers;— the bigger the better. Governing boards measure success through rankings, where spending is usually rewarded. And adding students can provide a short-term fix, particularly for presidents with an eye on their next job.

The fixation on rankings and research pervades universities, says William G. Tierney, director of the University of Southern California's Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. But he says the turning point is in sight.

"How many nanotechnology centers does the country need?" Mr. Tierney asks. "What we're seeing now is, I'll do it if you do it."

Big Ambition, Small University

Clemson has a nanotech program. But it also has a long history of resisting growth. With no law or medical school and a stable enrollment of only 17,000, it is one of the nation's smallest land-grant institutions.

"Our emphasis is on quality," says Leon J. (Bill) Hendrix Jr., chair of Clemson's board. "We're not offering everything everybody else is offering."

Holding the line has not always been easy. The university has faced political pressure to admit more in-state students and has been called elitist for rejecting legacy applicants.

Mr. Barker has firsthand experience with Clemson's emphasis on selectivity. The Kingsport, Tenn., native was himself just barely admitted to the university's undergraduate architecture program in 1965, gaining entry only after taking summer classes here. He's not complaining, however.

"There is a vein in Clemson that says, let's make sure that we don't get into territory that we can't be world-class in," says Mr. Barker, who attended the university on a partial track scholarship. "Let's try to do what we do really well."

Clemson's history has helped it steer clear of the siren call of growth. Founded in 1889 by the estate of Thomas G. Clemson, the university was intended to help impoverished farmers in a region devastated by the Civil War. Its footprint now includes 31,000 acres around the state. In his will, Mr. Clemson, who studied at the Sorbonne and was the first U.S. secretary of agriculture, deemed that the institution be a "high seminary of learning."

According to many people here, a focus on undergraduate programs is part of Clemson's DNA.

"We've tried really hard to preserve that," says Charles H. Gooding, a professor of chemical and biological engineering who has worked at Clemson for 28 years. He describes the university as a "high-quality, smaller institution where people matter."

Even Clemson's name fits a different mold. It has the ring of a private institution, not of a major public one.

But more influential to the university's personality has been its unusual board structure. According to its founding document, Clemson's 13-member Board of Trustees includes seven life members who select their own successors. The six other trustees are appointed by the state's legislature. As a result, Clemson has more of a buffer from the shifting winds of state politics than do most other public institutions.

Mr. Hendrix says the board is aware of pressure to admit more South Carolinians. But by focusing on teaching top-notch students, he says, the university remains true to its mission of improving the state's economy.

"We want to provide as much access to Clemson as possible," he says. "But we want to remain Clemson."

Saying No

The university has sometimes struggled to stay focused. Mr. Barker, who became president in 1999, admits that Clemson has occasionally "had more initiatives than we could manage."

That problem seemed acute in the early 1990s, according to Doris R. Helms, Clemson's provost and vice president for academic affairs.

"We were all over the place, like most institutions," says Ms. Helms, who joined the university's faculty in 1973 as an assistant professor of zoology. "You chase the issue of the day. And when it cools down, you chase the next one."

Then, in 1995, Clemson began a seismic overhaul of its academic structure. The administration gave trustees a proposal to cut the university's nine colleges to six or seven. The board's response was to go further, paring back to only four. Overnight, Clemson had half as many deans, and its liberal-arts programs had been combined with professional schools. (The university moved deans and other high-level staff members into faculty positions but did not lay anyone off.)

Although the process was painful, it eliminated redundancy and created the sort of interdisciplinary partnerships that would be in vogue across the industry a decade later. For example, English students joined architecture students in a Shakespeare studio class.

Six years later, Clemson's leaders decided more streamlining was in order and conducted a planning process that touched virtually everyone at the university.

The work began with Ms. Helms and Christian E.G. Przirembel, the university's vice president for research. The two administrators met for hours with each of Clemson's 57 academic departments and gathered testimony on their strengths and the barriers they faced.

After collecting reams of information, the university eventually made a plan that features eight areas of academic emphasis. From those flow the goals that Clemson hopes will carry it to top-20 status.

Mr. Barker, staying true to his architect's roots, uses diagrams, charts, and sketches to illustrate Clemson's decision-making processes. The documents explain how the university selects a limited number of new efforts, such as academic programs or corporate partnerships, each of which must come with a business plan.

"If you don't make this conscious decision, you will grow in size, you will pool resources toward research and away from other priorities," he says. "If you've claimed as wide a ground as many schools have, then it's hard to say no."

Many factors lead universities to emulate comprehensive research institutions, sometimes to their detriment.

In addition to the pressure of national rankings, the reward system for faculty members is a key driver, says Mr. Tierney, of the University of Southern California.

"In all institutions besides community colleges, the individuals with more research get better raises," he says, adding that research universities produce a large chunk of the nation's tenured faculty members. "We want to do what we're socialized and trained to do."

Clemson took aim at its tenure and promotion guidelines during the academic planning process. According to Ms. Helms, professors are now better rewarded for collaborating with colleagues and engaging students.

The university's reorganization has been aided by retirement policies. Although participation in a state retirement plan has been expensive for Clemson, the state plan gives the university advance notice about impending faculty retirements. Administrators say it has helped them be strategic about the areas where they need to hire.

"We're very focused on where we make our major investments," Mr. Przirembel says.

Ring Out the Old?

The Clemson Bottoms sit about a half-mile down the road from Death Valley, the university's 80,000-seat football stadium. The Bottoms are home to the Calhoun Field Laboratory, a pastoral site dedicated to agricultural research that features a large, student-run organic garden.

Mr. Barker says the Bottoms are an example of the hard choices a president must make. As at most universities, open land is a premium at Clemson. The field is an attractive target for development, particularly so close to the stadium.

"Everybody wants that property for something — parking, new buildings, whatever," he says. "I've said no. That is where we grow our crops and we do all kinds of research, right there near the heart of our campus."

Students deliver fresh tomatoes and peaches to Mr. Barker's campus home every Thursday. Although it's a nice perk, he says the real reason the Bottoms should be preserved is because they are a vital link to Clemson's heritage as an agriculture school.

Mr. Barker says some land-grant universities are drifting away from their service and farm-oriented past.

"It's kind of dusty," he says. "It doesn't talk about sophistication."

Clemson is proud of its grass-roots feel. That said, not all the university's areas of emphasis are old school. For example, its most successful recent venture is the uber-modern International Center for Automotive Research.

The 250-acre research park is located about 45 miles from campus, just off busy Interstate 85. So far it has landed $213-million in commitments from corporate partners, including BMW, Sun Microsystems, Michelin, and others. Clemson owns the buildings and grounds. The corporations foot construction and operating costs, and also finance faculty endowments.

Robert T. Geolas is the center's executive director. In a hiring coup for Clemson, Mr. Geolas in 2004 left his post as the top manager of North Carolina State's Centennial Campus, one of the nation's largest university research parks.

Many research parks are just real-estate partnerships, says Mr. Geolas, generating few other benefits for institutions. He says he was lured to Clemson to take the traditional model to a "new level, and start it from scratch."

At one building, vehicles drive up a ramp into an automotive research laboratory. Inside, workstations for graduate students are positioned near an expansive testing floor, where cars, trucks, and engines are put through their paces.

Mr. Barker has played a major role with the park, and not just with its blueprints. "Architecturally, I'm afraid I tinkered in it," he admits.

His most important contribution, according to Mr. Geolas, is making sure the project sticks to Clemson's overarching plans.

"Jim Barker," he says, "keeps us very focused."

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Section: Money & Management
Volume 54, Issue 46, Page A1

Copyright © 2008 by The Chronicle of Higher Education