I've been a big fan of VCU basketball for the past 3 years, have a spouse who is faculty (and also a big fan). We have big hopes for Rao, but what he needs to do to really improve VCU over the next 10 years is pretty momentous. VCU is a very large teaching school with several notable academic strengths, including basic and medical sciences, fine arts, and social work. Trani did an excellent job of expanding VCU and emphasizing its strengths. God knows the campus needed more buildings and it is getting them. Now VCU needs to focus on its weaknesses, it must rectify these problems in order to become a total package university, which, setting our affection for the place aside for the moment, it is not:
1) Research and graduate programs -- Not enough graduate programs. VCU is a big school that deserves at this point to have more graduate programs, but is hampered by a state policy to avoid duplication of graduate programs at its state universities. If VCU were to suddenly open a PhD program in English, would its graduates be able to compete with those from UVA on the job market. No, at least not inn the short term. But the lack of graduate programs stifles the intellectual life of the university and in important ways makes it so that undergrads from here are LESS MARKETABLE in academia. Rao must overcome these obstacles and convince the state that more graduate programs are necessary. Graduate students also help teach and force the faculty to stay current in their own research. Now I am well aware that at some major research universities teaching suffers because it plays second fiddle to research (this is especially true in the sciences!), but VCU has the opposite problem and needs to strike a better balance.
2) Faculty support -- Don't know about the physical and natural sciences at VCU, but in the social sciences and humanities the faculty still have heavier teaching loads than at most state schools, and are not given sabbaticals to do research as part of their contracts. This is weak. VCU has been plenty generous to my wife, but I know that other junior faculty really struggle to meet tenure requirements. The younger faculty at VCU are really top notch, wow they have so much potential, but working at a place that doesn't give them enough time to do additional research hurts not only their careers but it also hurts any undergrad who might want to pursue an academic career. Here's how: Professors at different universities know each other through networks (ie oh yeah we were grad students together at UNC!). But they also know each other through publications. When a professor writes you a letter of recommendation it can be the nicest and best written letter on earth, but it really makes more of an impact if the reader has heard of you, met you, or most importantly, read a publication you have written. Promoting research thus promotes students who are interested in moving on in academia. This in turn raises the national stature of the university, as these students move on to become scholars and spread the good word about VCU. Now I believe you can get into solid grad programs with a bachelor's from VCU in the sciences, but it would be tough to get into the best national programs coming from here. In the social sciences and humanities.... this can be done but it might be tougher. Rao needs to support faculty, build a few more grad programs, create a more intellectual atmosphere on campus. There are not enough public lectures, not enough forums, nott enough invited speakers. The level of intellectual debate (when there is any) is inadequate for any place that desires to be called a university.
3) Student culture - This is slowly but surely improving at VCU, most notably in the decrease in part--time students, and recently the big improvement in retention rates among students. I don't work on the Monroe Campus (I'm an MD/PhD affiliated with the MCV campus but working in a private hospital) but I have a LOT of exposure to pre-med students from VCU. I like what I see, I write lots of letters of recommendation, and I teach a lot of medicine to them. My wife really loves her VCU students, finds that there are a lower number of really superior students than were at U of Chicago where she used to teach, but that the really good students here are just as smart as the good students elsewhere. But here's the catch: VCU students very frequently willl start off strong in a class, will be getting a A in the class, and then at the end of the semester they'll fizzle out for no good reason and a B or worse. I see the same thing with my students when they are prepping for the MCAT's, and I harrass them constantly about it. It's like watching some of last year's games in which the team would start burning out the second quarter and it would seem like Maynor was going to me the only man left standing on the court. You have to finish the pay AND finish the game to win! A big, big part of this is students holding jobs, sometimes two jobs in addition to school. Back in the early 90's when I attended some classes at VCU and my wife was an undergrad, we knew so many people who started out at VCU and just got swallowed by bar jobs, restaurant jobs, the whole work scene, trying to look cool, whatever, and never finished. As I mentioned, the retention rate is improving, more VCU students are finishing their degrees BUT competing responsibilities etc. are still keeping many VCU students from achieving their true potential. What can Rao do about this? Well maybe a focus on realistic academic advising that took the student's entire life into account would be a good starting point. A president can make significant changes in the culture of a university, but this can not be accomplished by sitting back and taking a "managerial" approach (which has become the modus operandi at universities these days. True leadership and working closely with faculty and students with the shared goal of academic excellence is the only approach that will succeed. And no, the bean counting must still be attended to, but this is a necessary and important evil, not our primary purpose as a university, a place of learning, the place where I believe humans can reach their absolute highest potential on this earth. If Rao believes in his heart that VCU can be such a place, then he is the man for the job. But if he proves to be the university equivalent of a bank CEO, one of a clan of managerial elite who pat each other on the backs as they hobnob with elites and promote primarily their own interests, then we can expect VCU to slog along and fail to progress. Time will tell.
Thanks, and GO RAMS!!!!!!!!!!!
