Oct

What’s in that Report?

The Marquette Tribune reports:

[Assoc. Prof. of History Carla] Hay said her concerns stemmed from prior discussion at the meeting of the Yardley Report, an in-depth study of the university’s Ph.D. programs that took place earlier this year. The report was discussed during the Senate’s executive session, but was not released to the public.

Hay said the Yardley Report said the university should be more creative with combining different academic fields and that an interdisciplinary minor in corporate communication might be an opportunity to do so.

Apparently the Yardley Research Group is a national education consulting firm that does work with lots of universities nationwide. Their website lists several current projects, including:

Large Private Research Extensive University in the Northeastern United States: This project involved the development of market-focused strategic plans for all of the University’s doctoral programs, including benchmark improvement plans, capacity studies, and external funding strategies. We worked on revising the University’s policies on tenure, promotion, and merit review in order to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty from different departments and on defining overarching academic initiatives to build the University’s research profile.

Based on Dr. Hay’s comments and their current client list, I am pretty sure this is us.

Now, I understand that Marquette is spending a lot of money on this report and does not want to lose any competitive advantage it may have or disclose any future strategies.

At the same time, I think their is legitimate concern among students and faculty that the report may contain interesting or controversial things. It will be interesting to see if anyone gets their hands on a copy…

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