Editor’s note: The following message was sent to the CSU community on April 11.
Dear Colleagues:
Thank you to those who attended the Budget Model Redesign Initiative hybrid open forum last week for a Phase 3: Design presentation and discussion hosted by the Steering Committee. We had approximately 200 faculty and staff attendees and great engagement from those joining in-person and online. If you were unable to attend and would like to see the session, a recording is now available on the Budget Model Redesign Updates page where the Steering Committee’s regular progress reports to the University community are posted.
Below is the current Steering Committee update for Phase 3, including more information on the forum and the committee’s March 28 meeting.
Steering committee update
The Steering Committee forum (April 3) was led by the communications sub-committee and began with a brief overview on the Budget Model Redesign process from the initial research that began last summer to where we are today on the timeline, and the phases still ahead. We also provided a reminder of the governance structure and workflow for the initiative’s three committees (i.e., Executive Sponsor Committee, Steering Committee, and Technical Committee). The Steering and Technical committees began their work last fall.
The forum presentation then shifted to the work of the Steering Committee and their focus to date which has included evaluation of strategic metrics and governors for aligning a new budget model with past and future growth. Committee member Dr. Naomi Ward, Department Head of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, gave the following examples of some of the discussion items among the Steering Committee:
• Metrics used by other institutions to allocate resources and where there might be commonality while evaluating our own institutional priorities and what they mean – for example, what do we mean when we talk about student success and use that term?
• Costs, benefits, and tradeoffs of certain metrics over others to provide recommended parameters for the Technical Committee.
• Future needs we might anticipate and the impact on our institutional priorities. This includes the changing landscape of higher education driven by demographic shifts and other factors.
These examples set the stage for a 40-minute Q&A period. We encourage you to view the recording of the session to hear the full series of questions and panel responses. But much of the post-presentation discussion was centered around metrics and governors/guardrails, and what can and cannot be measured with formulaic models (e.g., infrastructure needs) requiring subvention (i.e., financial support).
College of Health and Human Sciences Dean Dr. Lise Youngblade, who serves on the Steering Committee, emphasized the depth and complexity of building a new model, and the goal is to do the best we can for the shadow and pilot years with the anticipation we will continue to adapt the model to our priorities, values, and needs based on feedback, impact, and outcomes.
“Analysis in building a model and some of the advice of other campuses is to start with a smaller model rather than an extremely complex one and work from there,” said Dr. Youngblade. “In thinking about what are the broadest and most explanatory metrics and then how do you build from there and balance tensions in refining a model that is growth-oriented but not unexpectedly detrimental across other metrics – it’s that kind of back and forth and learning.”
The most recent Steering Committee meeting was March 28, and discussions focused on the following:
• Right-sizing base versus incentivizing future growth.
• Consensus building and calibration on metrics to send to the Technical Committee (e.g., regarding majors, enrollment diversity, student success metrics like retention and graduation rates, Ph.D. graduates, etc.).
• Considering cost/benefit tradeoffs and unintended consequences in the design of a new model.
We encourage you to stay engaged with this process and provide your feedback or ask questions by emailing us at budget_model@colostate.edu or through the Budget Model Redesign online feedback form. The engagement of our University community is essential to the success of this initiative and its outcomes.
Sincerely,
Steering Committee
CSU Budget Model Redesign Initiative
About CSU’s Budget Conversation Series
Colorado State University is inviting all faculty, staff, and students to engage in two different yet simultaneous series of campus conversations and listening sessions around the institution’s budget. The first series of conversations focuses on the University’s current budget for FY23-24 and FY24-25, referred to as the operating or Incremental Budget.
The second series of conversations focuses on options for renewing our budget model for an innovative future in alignment with our land-grant mission and institutional priorities. The goal is to design a budget model that enables greater creativity and increased agility while improving fiscal responsibility and transparency in our financial decision-making processes. This is what is referred to as the Budget Model Redesign.
