Chancellor speaks on the new Ohio education ideas
Fingerhut discusses Ohio education collaboration
Johanna Hariharan
Issue date: 10/2/07 Section: News
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Last week, the idea of combining the University of Akron with Cleveland State University surfaced. Following this, the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, Eric Fingerhut, talked with the Buchtelite about the possibilities of merging Ohio's higher education institutions.
Fingerhut is in charge of the Ohio Univeristy System. This is a new plan for higher education put into place by Gov. Ted Strickland.
If you could mold the public university system of Ohio to your own ideas without being responsible to anyone else, what would you do? What does your perfect university system entail?
"Well, we would want it to be a world-class quality, highly affordable, flexible system in which enables Ohioans to stay here, a system that makes sure they get all the opportunities that they need to succeed in life, but that also attracts talented people from around the world."
What are the sacrifices that need to be made by everyone involved in the process?
"Well, I think we have to think about how we can all work together. We have 13 universities, and what one of the core concepts is that no single institution can provide everything that Ohioans need, but that collectively, all of our institutions can. We're asking them to differentiate their missions from each other, so instead of 13 similar universities, we will have 13 specialized universities."
He also said Each school will have to sacrifice a little bit of themselves in order to make this possible, and through compromise, create this system.
What changes would professors endure through this integration?
"Every school has to provide the basic education, but when we talk about building centers of excellence, we will maintain the leadership of the university. There is going to have to be new faculty, new facilities, however.…what we need to do is that if we want to be world class and come up, that does mean making choices. We have to do what's best for the university system. We're hoping that the universities will make the choices to improve on their own, We're not planning to dictate the university, we're hoping that they will continue in their own areas of growth."
Fingerhut is in charge of the Ohio Univeristy System. This is a new plan for higher education put into place by Gov. Ted Strickland.
If you could mold the public university system of Ohio to your own ideas without being responsible to anyone else, what would you do? What does your perfect university system entail?
"Well, we would want it to be a world-class quality, highly affordable, flexible system in which enables Ohioans to stay here, a system that makes sure they get all the opportunities that they need to succeed in life, but that also attracts talented people from around the world."
What are the sacrifices that need to be made by everyone involved in the process?
"Well, I think we have to think about how we can all work together. We have 13 universities, and what one of the core concepts is that no single institution can provide everything that Ohioans need, but that collectively, all of our institutions can. We're asking them to differentiate their missions from each other, so instead of 13 similar universities, we will have 13 specialized universities."
He also said Each school will have to sacrifice a little bit of themselves in order to make this possible, and through compromise, create this system.
What changes would professors endure through this integration?
"Every school has to provide the basic education, but when we talk about building centers of excellence, we will maintain the leadership of the university. There is going to have to be new faculty, new facilities, however.…what we need to do is that if we want to be world class and come up, that does mean making choices. We have to do what's best for the university system. We're hoping that the universities will make the choices to improve on their own, We're not planning to dictate the university, we're hoping that they will continue in their own areas of growth."
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