Is three a crowd?
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/34751536-78/is-three-a-crowd.html.csp
It is the ambition of every college president to raise the profile and prestige of his or her institution, and Wim Wiewel at Portland State University has been no exception. As Wiewel begins his final year as president, it’s clear that by many measures he has succeeded: PSU has more students and draws more research funds than it did when he arrived eight years ago. If his successor can keep the trend lines moving in an upward direction, a question arises: Is there room in Oregon for three major universities?
If Oregon’s system of higher education could be designed from scratch, it wouldn’t look like the system the state has today. The flagship liberal arts university, the University of Oregon, would be in Portland, the state’s population center, and closely connected to the state’s medical school, Oregon Health & Science University. Oregon’s system would be like Washington’s, where Seattle is home to the University of Washington.
But early Portlanders, led by Harvey Scott, editor of The Oregonian, were indifferent or hostile to the idea of public colleges, creating the opportunity for Matthew Deady and others to found the UO in Eugene. The Morrill Act of 1862 led to the establishment of agricultural land-grant colleges, including the one that became Oregon State University in Corvallis. Portland didn’t have a four-year public institution of higher education until 1955, when Portland State College evolved from its beginnings as a training center and vocational school for World War II veterans. Portland State became a university in 1969.
Demand for higher education in the state’s population and economic center has pushed PSU’s enrollment upward. Last year, with 28,000 students, it was neck and neck with OSU and ahead of the UO, which had just over 24,000 students. PSU’s student body tends to be older — the average age is 26 — and many students’ lives are centered away from the downtown campus, causing it to be labeled a “commuter college.”
Under Wiewel, PSU’s research activity has increased 60 percent, to $65 million a year. That’s not in the league of OSU, with $308 million in research grants and contracts, or the UO, with $114 million. OSU benefits from having a school of engineering. PSU’s status as a research institution would be boosted by closer ties to research-intensive OHSU, and those ties are developing — the two are creating a joint school of public health this year.
As enrollments equalize and the research gap narrows, Oregon may soon have to accommodate three major universities instead of two. The question then will be whether higher education in Oregon is a zero-sum game, with one institution’s gains coming at the others’ expense.
The universities have long been competing for students, programs and public resources. PSU resents the UO’s steady expansion of programs in Portland, and both the UO and OSU attempt to guard against recreation of their academic programs at PSU. The formula for distribution of shrinking state funds favors PSU for enrolling more low-income students. The competition will become more fierce now that all three universities are governed by independent boards of trustees, and are under fewer restraints against poaching on each others’ turf.
Such competition can be destructive, resulting in costly duplication and a mutual dilution of academic programs, or it can be healthy, leading all three institutions to continually improve in ways that benefit students. A stronger PSU would imply a weaker UO and OSU if the resources to be shared among them remain constant, but all three could flourish if the unique contributions of each to Oregon’s economy and culture are recognized and rewarded.
PSU will not put its ambitions aside, and its Portland base gives it the political clout to pursue them. It will be up to Oregonians and their leaders to ensure that PSU’s rise does not water the soup.
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/34751536-78/is-three-a-crowd.html.csp
It is the ambition of every college president to raise the profile and prestige of his or her institution, and Wim Wiewel at Portland State University has been no exception. As Wiewel begins his final year as president, it’s clear that by many measures he has succeeded: PSU has more students and draws more research funds than it did when he arrived eight years ago. If his successor can keep the trend lines moving in an upward direction, a question arises: Is there room in Oregon for three major universities?
If Oregon’s system of higher education could be designed from scratch, it wouldn’t look like the system the state has today. The flagship liberal arts university, the University of Oregon, would be in Portland, the state’s population center, and closely connected to the state’s medical school, Oregon Health & Science University. Oregon’s system would be like Washington’s, where Seattle is home to the University of Washington.
But early Portlanders, led by Harvey Scott, editor of The Oregonian, were indifferent or hostile to the idea of public colleges, creating the opportunity for Matthew Deady and others to found the UO in Eugene. The Morrill Act of 1862 led to the establishment of agricultural land-grant colleges, including the one that became Oregon State University in Corvallis. Portland didn’t have a four-year public institution of higher education until 1955, when Portland State College evolved from its beginnings as a training center and vocational school for World War II veterans. Portland State became a university in 1969.
Demand for higher education in the state’s population and economic center has pushed PSU’s enrollment upward. Last year, with 28,000 students, it was neck and neck with OSU and ahead of the UO, which had just over 24,000 students. PSU’s student body tends to be older — the average age is 26 — and many students’ lives are centered away from the downtown campus, causing it to be labeled a “commuter college.”
Under Wiewel, PSU’s research activity has increased 60 percent, to $65 million a year. That’s not in the league of OSU, with $308 million in research grants and contracts, or the UO, with $114 million. OSU benefits from having a school of engineering. PSU’s status as a research institution would be boosted by closer ties to research-intensive OHSU, and those ties are developing — the two are creating a joint school of public health this year.
As enrollments equalize and the research gap narrows, Oregon may soon have to accommodate three major universities instead of two. The question then will be whether higher education in Oregon is a zero-sum game, with one institution’s gains coming at the others’ expense.
The universities have long been competing for students, programs and public resources. PSU resents the UO’s steady expansion of programs in Portland, and both the UO and OSU attempt to guard against recreation of their academic programs at PSU. The formula for distribution of shrinking state funds favors PSU for enrolling more low-income students. The competition will become more fierce now that all three universities are governed by independent boards of trustees, and are under fewer restraints against poaching on each others’ turf.
Such competition can be destructive, resulting in costly duplication and a mutual dilution of academic programs, or it can be healthy, leading all three institutions to continually improve in ways that benefit students. A stronger PSU would imply a weaker UO and OSU if the resources to be shared among them remain constant, but all three could flourish if the unique contributions of each to Oregon’s economy and culture are recognized and rewarded.
PSU will not put its ambitions aside, and its Portland base gives it the political clout to pursue them. It will be up to Oregonians and their leaders to ensure that PSU’s rise does not water the soup.
