Reference no: EM132475096

Point 1: Major State University (MSU) increasingly offers courses in summer session, when most students are away from campus. As a way of encouraging academic units (e.g., the College of Business) within MSU to increase summer instruction, the Controller's Office of MSU has issued a policy ("MSU Summer Sessions Funding Policy") that provides additional funding to units that undertake summer teaching.

Point 2: The policy provides that units offering summer courses will receive additional funds from the central administration. Teaching effort is measured in student-credit-hours, or SCH. For example, if twelve students enroll in a three credit-hour course, then the amount of teaching is computed to be 36 SCH (i.e., 3 credit-hours × 12 students). If the SCH a unit delivers in a summer is less than or equal to the SCH delivered in the previous year, the unit receives $100 for each SCH. If the SCH a unit delivers in a summer is more than the SCH delivered in the previous year, then the unit receives $100 for each SCH taught up to the number of SCH taught in the prior year, and $300 for each SCH taught over and above the SCH taught in the prior year.

Point 3: From these funds, the unit must pay the instructor to teach the course. Payments to instructors for extra teaching done in the summer range from $4,000 to $10,000 per course. For every dollar of compensation paid to the instructor, the unit is additionally charged 35 cents to cover the cost of fringe benefits (e.g., pension and medical benefits) provided to instructors.

Point 4: The units use net funds generated by summer teaching to undertake scholarly research and course development. Units are eager to do more research and develop new courses, but are short of funds to pay for these activities. Most classroom space on MSU's campus is unused in the summer, although the classrooms continue to receive janitorial service, electricity, heating, and cooling. Janitorial service, power usage, and building depreciation costs are tracked by central administration, but are not charged to academic units.

Point 5: MSU charges tuition to students who take summer courses at a rate of $500 per credit-hour for in-state students and $1,000 per credit-hour for out-of-state students.

Assignment Answer these questions:

Question 1: Draft a memo recommending changes or improvements to the "MSU Summer Sessions Funding Policy" that would improve outcomes at MSU. Explain your reasoning for these changes.

Question 2: Understanding that the modified policy will affect choices made throughout MSU and the resources available to various units to accomplish their respective missions, explain a narrative explaining how you expect the Provost, the Controller, and the heads of the academic units to react to your proposed policy change.