Proposal to Formalize
the Temple University Ambler College

The purpose of this proposal is to begin University-wide discussions on the reorganization of Ambler Campus as Temple’s seventeenth College, The Ambler College.

This change would continue the evolution during the past four decades of Temple Ambler, from a school with limited offerings to a more broadly based academic unit with a substantial number of undergraduate and graduate students. The key factor driving this reorganization is the need of students for a stronger academic community, with an organizational structure that would allow the campus to plan and develop more effective and responsive programs and services.

In the current structure, all faculty and programs--with the exception of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture--are administered by the Main Campus schools and colleges.

With the present organization, Temple Ambler ["Ambler," hereafter] may not, on its own, offer any course or program: It can only petition one of Temple’s sixteen schools or colleges to do so. Ambler has no permanent faculty, it operates with a "mobile" faculty, most of whom teach part-time at Ambler and many of whom do not return from one semester to the next. The proposed College would provide the mechanism for hiring and establishing a critical mass of regular, full-time faculty, the autonomy to propose new courses and degrees in response to the needs of the regional suburban market, and the flexibility in retaining key program and faculty collaborations with the Main Campus colleges and schools. All of this, we believe, would improve the students’ educational experience.

Given Temple’s position as a regional University, this proposal to enhance and expand Ambler is timely. The proposed reorganization would position the Ambler College to compete effectively with the other colleges and universities in the area for students preferring a suburban location.

This report begins with a description of Ambler’s current status and its future outlook. It then takes up the issues surrounding the proposed reorganization plan by answering the following questions:

1. What is the Temple University Ambler College?
2. How will the reorganization affect the structure, faculty, curriculum and quality of the degree, students, and budgets?
3. What are the key issues to be addressed with this reorganization?

There are, at present, 19 undergraduate majors, 12 graduate programs, and core courses in 100 undergraduate programs "available" at Ambler. At present, the following degree programs can be completed fully at Temple Ambler:

Associate’s Degree: Horticulture

Bachelor’s Degrees: Accounting, Anthropology (Human Biology), Business Management, Communications and Theater (Interdepartmental Major), Criminal Justice, Economics, Elementary Education, English, General Engineering Technology, History, Horticulture, Human Resource Administration, Interdisciplinary Studies in Liberal Arts (Social Sciences or Humanities), Landscape Architecture, Marketing, Nursing—RN to BSN (for RNs only), Organizational Studies, Political Science, Psychology

Master’s Degrees: Accounting, Business Administration, Computer and Information Sciences (M.B.A.), Educational Administration, Electrical Engineering, Finance, General and Strategic Management, Human Resource Administration, International Business, Management Science/Operations Management, Marketing, Pharmaceutical Quality Assurance/Regulatory

During the 1999-2000 academic year, the enrollment at Ambler, including the Fort Washington Graduate and Professional Center, was 3,850. Undergraduate enrollment at Ambler accounted for 2,752 students, while the graduate enrollment was 1,098. It should be noted that the Fort Washington Graduate and Professional Center opened in 1997 in response to burgeoning graduate enrollment and inadequate facilities at Ambler, with 800 students moving from Ambler to the new location. The Fort Washington Center continues to be a part of the Ambler administrative structure. While Ambler remains true to its mission, to help the University attract students from the suburbs by responding to the needs and interests of the region, Ambler certainly has the potential for major growth.

In keeping with its original "feeder" function, Ambler serves as a gateway for younger, traditional students who want to start at a smaller campus before transferring to the Main Campus. The student population includes many students who could not, or would not attend another Temple campus. Ambler also attracts prospective commuter students who want to complete all their studies at Ambler. This latter group includes both traditional and nontraditional students, who, because of family, work, or financial constraints, are unable to attend the Main Campus, but still want the prestige, affordability, and inherent quality of a Temple degree. They would probably not be Temple University students if Ambler were not offering them the full degree programs they need.

Moreover, the strategic location of Temple Ambler enables the University to develop partnerships and transfer agreements with community colleges and to recruit the large market of upper-level transfer students from community colleges. Further, it provides a direct link for the University to the growing market of high-tech companies located in the Ambler area.

Ironically, the advantages inherent in Ambler’s suburban location also constitute an obvious disadvantage. Despite the best efforts of dedicated and highly competent administrators and staff from the Main Campus and Health Sciences Campus, the practical effect of 20 miles separation creates on the Ambler Campus inefficiencies in operation that students and faculty clearly experience. The same is often the case with some academic departments. Even in an era increasingly being characterized as "high technology," the fact that Ambler is such a physical distance from both the Main Campus and the Health Sciences Campus creates a situation of "out of sight, out of mind."

The Ambler campus offers a wide range of university programs and services. Most, however, are controlled by Temple’s central administration, with the Deans of the Schools and Colleges responsible for almost all credit programs. Only two programs, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, both of which are unique to the Ambler Campus, are administered by the Dean of Ambler. All other programs fall under the administration of the Main Campus, with program requirements the same whether earned at Ambler, the Main or the Health Sciences Campus.

Personnel reporting lines are fragmented, with some reporting directly to central administrators, others to the Dean of Ambler. Monies for Ambler are administered throughout the University by several different budgets (e.g. Housing, Financial Aid, Facilities); in most cases key budgetary decisions affecting Ambler are made by unit heads at the Main Campus. Within the existing structure, the Ambler Dean is in the unenviable and highly restrictive position of having responsibility for resolving campus problems without the authority to do so.

The Ambler campus strives to provide learners with the opportunity for an excellent education in a wide variety of disciplines at the lower-division level and in selected baccalaureate programs; however, it does not always succeed in meeting this goal. Recent meetings with the Dean of Ambler and with President Liacouras clearly indicate that students are dissatisfied with the quality of their educational experience. They voiced particular concerns about the quality of academic programs and the quality of faculty. According to students, insufficient course offerings and haphazard methods of assigning teachers to Ambler are to blame.

The students have complained that although the campus advertises that nineteen undergraduate degrees are available at Ambler, many cannot be completed in a timely manner because of limited availability of courses. Students also mention the limited opportunities for interaction with faculty. They are emphatic in their desire that the situation be corrected. They have requested that classes be taught by regular, experienced faculty who could serve as advisors and informal mentors.

To meet the educational expectations of these students and to ensure curricular quality, the campus must raise the bar in all areas of program delivery.

Ambler Campus, located on 187 acres in eastern Montgomery County, includes 26 buildings with 46,000 square feet housing classrooms and with 26,238 square feet housing faculty and administrative offices.

Ambler is currently at capacity, with all 72 classrooms fully scheduled mornings and evenings, with limited space available in the late afternoon. Even the Fort Washington location, currently used for graduate programs, professional development, and continuing education, is at capacity for both day and evening classes. The proposed programming expansion of Ambler will require upgrading, renovating, and expanding the physical plant.

As President Liacouras reported to the Board of Trustees, plans for campus renovations and expansion are under consideration in Spring 2000. These include the Learning Center, library enhancements, headhouse and greenhouse, new student residence hall, 80 offices for permanent and other faculty, and a Student Recreation Center. A formal master plan, currently under development, will serve as a blueprint for future expansion and outline priorities for the use of resources.

The Dean of Ambler believes that Ambler has the potential to increase its student population by 30 percent, to 5,500 students, within five years. This level of potential growth is supported by the data on demographic and employment expectations for the Ambler area. Between the years 2000 and 2008 the total number of high school graduates in Pennsylvania will increase by nearly 6 percent. The greatest growth will occur in the extreme eastern counties, including Bucks (13.2 percent) and Montgomery (17.0 percent), with the percentage of graduates bound for college regularly exceeding the state average.

By 2020, population growth in the nine-county Philadelphia region is predicted to increase 11 percent over the 1990 level, with strong growth in both Bucks and Montgomery counties. Demographers are estimating long-term growth in minority populations in the Ambler service area. Montgomery County, for example, is experiencing its largest growth from minority populations. According to Census Bureau projections, numbers of Asians, persons of Hispanic origin, and African Americans are expected to increase significantly in the next three decades. The new Ambler College is likely to be as culturally diverse as the Main Campus. The current Ambler ethnic distribution data already reflects this trend. In fall 1999, minority enrollment for students attending Ambler accounted for 21%.

Employment is likewise expected to increase, with occupations requiring the highest level of education experiencing the highest growth—namely, finance, marketing, law, design and engineering, computer software and hardware, telecommunications, health-care, and hospitality services. The Ambler campus service area is becoming high-tech. Many of the new companies, office parks, and research laboratories are located within a ten-mile radius of the campus in Blue Bell, Fort Washington, Plymouth Meeting, Conshohocken, Horsham, Willow Grove, and Jenkintown. Ambler is intent on designing and delivering the high-powered programs needed to meet the sophisticated demands of this rapidly changing business world.

These external factors, combined with the proposed internal changes, suggest that Ambler’s enrollment growth is promising. Success in achieving this enrollment increase will depend on developing a vibrant "full-service" community of scholars, maintaining rigorous lower-division programs for those students who wish to transfer to the Main Campus, continuing to offer degrees from Main Campus schools and colleges, and developing "niche" programs, both on-campus and on-line, that are unique to Ambler's mission. Preliminary data suggest that such market-based programs could include the following:

The above examples are preliminary recommendations. Further internal and external studies need to be conducted to determine the specifics of the market’s needs and the feasibility of meeting those needs. Ambler’s approach to developing new programs and services will be reality-based: The campus is keenly aware that it must set priorities and it must be flexible and wise enough to balance needs and interests with resources. Planning must be rooted in the accurate assessment of Ambler’s niche in the marketplace. The campus must have a clear vision of its mission, of the clientele to be served, and of the programs and services necessary for attracting and retaining that clientele. Thus a strategy for developing these new programs and services will be part of the market analysis now being conducted by Kane and Parsons, a consulting firm specializing in market research in higher education.

The College we propose here is defined as an organized, integrated academic unit comprising faculty from several disciplines, supported by administration and staff. The Ambler College will provide high quality, convenient, affordable education in direct response to the needs of the local community. Ambler’s special mission, to serve the traditional and non-traditional learners of the eastern suburbs, will make it distinctive in the Temple community.

The strength of the College will lie in its timely ability to offer high quality programming that is interdisciplinary, flexible in format, and responsive to market needs. The College structure will help build a critical mass of excellent resident faculty, essential for delivering programs and for building community among students, faculty, and staff while having, at the same time, the benefit of the Main Campus faculty expertise and administrative support for enrichment, innovation, and growth.

2. How will the reorganization affect the structure, faculty, the curriculum and quality of the Temple degree, students, and budgets?

Temple is one university with sixteen discipline-specific schools and colleges. It has one governing board, one president, one faculty, and one central administration. Academic programs and courses are reviewed by one Faculty Senate and Graduate Board. Degrees offered by all schools and colleges are Temple University degrees. None of these facts would change with the reorganization of the Ambler campus to Ambler College.

The Temple University Ambler College would promote and strengthen existing ties with colleges, departments, and faculty throughout the University. The College would also cultivate new alliances to enhance both the development of expected new inter-disciplinary programs and the delivery of programs from Main Campus departments. The College must, of course, subscribe to the overall strategic goals of the University and aggressively seek opportunities for cooperation and interaction.

Existing Programs. At present, nineteen baccalaureate degrees and twelve master’s degrees offered by Temple’s schools and colleges are delivered at Ambler and Fort Washington. Under the new proposal, the ownership and academic responsibility for these programs would remain with the original offering unit, under the aegis of a department and college at the Main or Health Sciences campus. However, while some of the existing programs are administered efficiently between the downtown and suburban locations, the administration of others needs to be strengthened. In these cases, while the downtown department head and dean would be responsible for the degree and its faculty, it is expected that there would also be close coordination and shared responsibility between the downtown and Ambler deans for scheduling and staffing of courses and modification of programs, as well as the academic quality of programs.

New Programs. Ambler College would be empowered to submit new courses and degree programs to the E.P.P.C and to the Graduate Board for review in the normal, prescribed manner. Through disciplined planning, the college would develop and offer a narrow spectrum of market-based, high demand, and high quality programs. Some new programs would require new courses; others might take a "building block" approach, where existing courses of the University are used to create new programs. This variety of programs would fill local needs and allow the Ambler College to build on strengths that already exist within the University .

All such plans will be developed in consultation with affected University schools and colleges and academic support units. Every effort would be made to avoid unnecessary duplication of programs and to ensure curricular consistency between the Main Campus and Ambler.

Several guiding principles would be followed in developing new programs. The overall quality and rigor of courses used to satisfy the degree requirements of the new programs at Ambler must be similar to those at Main. There should be sufficient faculty on Ambler campus to enable frequent offerings of required and elective courses. The library holdings at Ambler must be adequate for the degree, and the research and instructional laboratories must be available in quantity and quality sufficient to support them. A sufficient number of students must be present to lead to a "critical size" for each program. Programs should be uniquely Temple; they would not duplicate the offerings of local institutions. Thus, all would reflect Temple’s role as a research university, through undergraduate research, freshman seminars, and core approach to curricular diversity and strengths.

Core Curriculum/General Education Courses. To assure a common core/general education program and thus facilitate the "feeder" function to the Main Campus, there must be curricular consistency between the core/general education offered at Temple University Ambler College and those offered at the Main Campus. These courses ought to be reviewed periodically by the faculty via the senate, and monitored for quality and curricular consistency by the Provost.

Upper Division Courses. Upper division courses should also be consistent, with some allowances for course differences in special areas where local needs and opportunities call for such differences.

To ensure the quality of academic programs, to plan curricula, and to strengthen faculty-student interaction, an Ambler "core" faculty must be developed, consisting of an appropriate mix of Presidential faculty, Dean’s appointments, and part-time appointments. The Presidential faculty should serve full-time at Ambler for terms not less than four years. Some would be permanently at Ambler; others would occasionally teach on other campuses or would leave Ambler entirely at the end of their terms.

The faculty should have the credentials appropriate to the awarding of the intended degrees. For example, faculty members teaching 400-level courses would be expected to have a Ph.D. (or a terminal degree) in the field of study. Students in the University Scholars programs, as well as others who meet the requirements, should have adequate opportunities to pursue challenging undergraduate research and complete scholarly projects with faculty who can serve as credible mentors.

To implement such a plan, existing faculty from the larger programs (business, education, psychology, communications and theater) should be assigned to Ambler, with provisions being made for their tenure and promotion through regular Main Campus departmental channels. These reassigned faculty members, whose tenure home remains in the Main Campus colleges, would nevertheless also be considered members of Ambler College, participating in the governance, faculty, and curricular assemblies of both, the Ambler and "home" colleges. (This reassignment may not pertain to certain programs, especially those with small numbers of faculty and stringent accreditation standards, such as nursing and QA/RA). The establishment of a nuclear or core faculty at Ambler will require consultation at all levels. The Provost, together with the Ambler Dean and several deans whose colleges have programs at Ambler, should implement the policy of providing Ambler with a core faculty.

In the future, Ambler should also have the option of hiring new faculty. These new faculty would have the opportunity to select appropriate tenure loci, in accordance with the program relationships with the University's schools and colleges. For given faculty, options will vary, depending on the status of the academic program. For example, in the case of free-standing programs with limited ties or no ties to academic departments at Main Campus, the appropriate tenure loci should be Ambler, with the tenure decision recommended by the Ambler Dean. However, in the case of faculty associated with programs overseen by academic departments with Main Campus colleges, tenure process would continue to be based at the Main Campus, with input from the Ambler Dean regarding teaching and service.

The provision for hiring permanent faculty for Ambler will attract individuals to Ambler who will identify with the campus, provide stability, and strengthen the overall quality of the Ambler educational experience.

Student recruiting and admissions would continue to be overseen through the Office of the Vice President for Enrollment. This will also be a shared responsibility and a collaborative effort between the Main Campus and Ambler College.

Good management procedures have always recognized that local administration--with an immediate interest in, and understanding of, its market, constituencies, and mission, and with its responsibility for the success of the whole--is best suited to deliver local services and to satisfy local needs. At the same time, it is important to maintain strong ties to the university and to keep personnel connected to their academic and administrative areas. Therefore, in order to deliver local services more effectively, the Ambler Dean should supervise directly the activities of those nonacademic personnel stationed at Ambler who currently report to managers on the Main Campus. What is proposed is a matrix relationship in which the main reporting line is to the Dean of Ambler with a secondary reporting line to the functional area expert. The Dean of Ambler will consult with the area experts on performance reviews.

Certain guiding principles should be established for Ambler College with respect to budget. First, the budget for Ambler College should include the salaries and departmental allotments for all administrative personnel based at Ambler. These funds simply need to be transferred from existing budgets.

Ambler should control a faculty budget with which to reimburse colleges for salaries of faculty serving at Ambler. A budgetary fund to cover faculty salaries and certain academic support services needs to be allocated to Ambler. Then, the involved colleges and departments would be requested to staff the necessary courses and sections, with faculty salaries covered by the Ambler budget.

Additional funds may need to be allocated to support the new college structure. Additional monies may also be added over time as enrollment increases. Ambler College would be on the same budget model as the other sixteen colleges. It is also expected that the other colleges and their departments would continue to have certain responsibilities to support Ambler, much the way they now support the other sixteen colleges.

With a solid base of rich curricular offerings,bolstered by experienced support personnel and strong student services, Ambler College will be in a position to offer the kind of quality education that Temple's constituents expect. However, the campus is also fully aware of the increased operational and financial responsibilities inherent in the "full-service" college structure. First and foremost, Ambler will have to create an organizational structure that supports campus plans and effectively positions Ambler within Temple University and within the eastern region of Pennsylvania. This structure needs to include provisions for building a core of full-time faculty and granting of administrative autonomy to the campus for day-to-day activities. Following are some of the key issues to be addressed:

• Academic Programs: strengthen the quality of existing academic programs; develop and deliver new programs that address student and community needs;

• Academic and Support Services: improve studentlife/learning resources; enhance library holdings and services; continue to improve technology;

• Physical Plant: improve and expand the physical plant to accommodate projected growth in programs, enrollment, and faculty;

• Resources: increase financial and human resources to support programs and services; intensify efforts to obtain development funds and external grants;

• Marketing and Recruitment: design, implement, track and annually assess a comprehensive recruitment and marketing plan aimed at clearly defined market segments;

• Strategic Alliances: develop strategic alliances that enhance opportunities for the use of distance education technology.

It is expected that the proposed structure for the Temple University Ambler College would benefit Ambler faculty, staff, and students, and the University as a whole. The University would benefit in enrollments, visibility, and financial considerations, but the primary benefits would be academic in nature.

Benefits of the College reorganization would extend far beyond the campus borders. The enhancement of an academically excellent, niche-focused, and community-aware institution, located in the heart of the Montgomery County, would promote even greater economic vitality to this fast-growing region. Students who earn Temple degrees or certificates at Ambler would, by their successes, provide a strong alumni base in the suburban communities and businesses. Such a base can have far-reaching effects in terms of student recruitment, sponsored research, and outright gifts.

February 10, 2000

Sophia T. Wisniewska