By Kristina Goetz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

University of Cincinnati President Nancy L. Zimpher discusses UC's ambitious academic plan, during an interview in her office on the main campus. The Cincinnati Enquirer/GARY LANDERS

The University of Cincinnati soon will embark on the most ambitious academic plan in its history, one that aims to increase academic standards, elevate research and boost the school's name recognition beyond the region.

The plan, which President Nancy Zimpher will detail during her inauguration today, is an effort to increase UC's prestige and its national rankings.

Called "UC|21: Defining the New Urban Research University," it will mean big changes both on and off campus.

Students may, for the first time, face admissions standards and changes in the way UC charges tuition. Internally, UC will move to a performance-based budget that will reward successful programs and develop alternatives to generate money at a time when state funding has dwindled.

The community will also see greater partnerships unfold between UC and groups like public schools and health-care organizations. UC wants to become a national leader in reforming education by creating seamless transitions from preschool through college.

"We need an ambitious aspiration, a sense of where we're going to be in the future," Zimpher said. "If we've come from good to great, now we're going from great to premier."

The framework for UC's first academic master plan is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by students, faculty, alumni and community members at a level that has never been done on UC's campus. Eight town hall meetings and 83 input sessions later, those involved say they've developed a clear road map for UC's future.

"It was a very intense process," said John Cuppoletti, a physiology professor in the College of Medicine and the Faculty Senate's chairman-elect. "It was bottom-up, not top-down, and the product is comprehensive. I believe it has the potential of creating a renaissance in Cincinnati and at the University of Cincinnati."

Variable tuition a goal

UC won't wait for the state's financial situation to turn the corner, though, to implement these programs. Instead, finance officials are planning some creative revenue-generating strategies. In Zimpher's address, she'll set aggressive targets for the endowment, enrollment, the ratio of in-state versus non-resident students, the saturation of information technology on campus and research funding.

Zimpher is also pushing tuition deregulation at the state level. Now, an incoming student who is an Ohio resident pays the same price no matter what area he studies. But the president argues that it makes more sense economically to allow public universities to charge more money for programs in high demand. At UC, engineering, architecture and interior design are examples of highly competitive programs.

"It isn't quite a picture of doing more with less," she said. "It's really a picture of doing more with more. I don't want to let the state off the hook; we still need them, we still expect them. But on the other hand, we're going to have to start to grow our own revenues."

Tuition deregulation has been discussed among the Ohio Board of Regents' Higher Education Funding Commission, which is discussing issues of the state's fiscal 2006-08 biennial budget. Zimpher is a representative on that panel.

To lay the groundwork for this new budget model, UC announced in January that it would cut $6.6 million from its budget, one of the biggest midyear slashes in school history.

"A big part of the belt tightening that we initiated was really about stabilizing our budget over this year and next so that we could really position ourselves to start growing revenues," Zimpher said.

But other strategies for increasing funding may include offering more services to the public such as polling, consulting and design work, and more online courses.

All of this planning will both highlight and serve as a catalyst to increase the school's national presence and recognition. UC's 2003 endowment of $873 million ranks 49th in the United States among all colleges and universities, and 13th among public universities.

Generating more grants that can be used to boost research also is a goal. Last year, UC and its affiliates earned more than $309 million in grants and contracts, an 18.6 percent increase over the prior year. But those numbers can always climb, Zimpher said.

UC also wants to establish nationally renowned centers that look at real-world problems using resources that cross disciplines. One area where UC excels is biomedical engineering, where scientists from medical and engineering fields work on projects like artificial limbs.

"It kind of seems academics were lost in the last era, and I really feel like Dr. Zimpher is going to revitalize academics," said Kurt Egbers, a senior chemical engineering major from Hyde Park.

Sweating the details

The next step is for several action teams to refine the details of UC|21 over the summer, set priorities, begin crafting budgets and benchmarks to measure success. Community members will then begin to see some of the changes.

For example, while UC plans to recruit more National Merit Scholars and possibly change admissions standards, access for less gifted students will still be part of the school's mission. But the approach will be different.

"We know we want to continue to admit students at some level who have not had access to equal educational opportunities," Zimpher said. "But we're not just going to do it by saying, 'Come here and we'll improve deficiencies.' "

UC has created the Center for Access and Transition, which will help students move more quickly from remedial classes into their majors. But school officials are also forging better partnerships with two-year schools, including UC's branch campuses as well as Cincinnati State Technical and Community College to make transferring credits easier.

"The old view of access was, you just set the bar low and people who were under-prepared tripped over the bar into remedial education and you spend two years making up for what wasn't available to them in the beginning," Zimpher said.

That's why UC will work with Cincinnati Public Schools and other districts as early as middle school to build college readiness.

"It's much more economical and much fairer for the student to be there at the moment of engagement, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade: be a partner with classroom teachers, get our professors really engaged in teaching math and science and literacy at the point where it really matters," she said.

Six goals toward an academic revival"UC/21: Defining the New Urban Research University," has six goals and 21 action steps that school officials say will take UC from a great university to a premier one.

Here are some highlights of the six goals:

• Place students at the center: UC officials want to increase the university's national rankings by attracting top students but at the same time maintain access for those who haven't had the same opportunity as their peers.

• Grow research excellence: UC plans to establish high-profile centers that cross disciplines to address problems not only in the city but also in the world.

• Achieve academic excellence: UC will more aggressively market its programs beyond the Cincinnati region to help move the university into top-tier rankings.

• Forge key relationships: UC wants to become a national leader in the reform and revitalization of pre-college education by creating a seamless transition from preschool through college.

• Creating a sense of place: This goal will create incentives for collaborations and joint programs between the east and west campuses.

• Create opportunity: Revenue and budget changes will provide incentives for program performance and identify creative ways to generate revenue.