Appeal of Clinical Psychology Ph.D.
Program Elimination Decision
C. Richard Spates, Linda A. LeBlanc, Wayne Fuqua We appeal the recommendation to eliminate the Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology on the grounds that the program (1) meets the stated criteria of the Graduate Program Review (GPR), (2) serves as a substantial financial asset to University, and (3) falls directly in line with the stated strategic objectives of the University. Our departmental rating and dean ratings were high (5) and the somewhat lower rating of the review team (3) was successfully appealed to the faculty senate based on bias and procedural errors. All recommendations prior to the Provost’s were to maintain or grow the program. We believe that the final administrative decisions about our program were based on inaccurate information about our enrollment and costs. Based on the minimal materials received from the Provost’s office, it appears that several false impressions and faulty information impacted their decision. We attempt to clarify these points and address each of the brief comments from the Provost’s office (spreadsheet of GPR summary – line 42). · False impression of low enrollment and high faculty student ratio. The clinical program has 32 students (36 for Fall 06) rather than the 3 students listed in the Banner system (previous years enrollment in table below). Our faculty:student ratio is 1:6. · False impression that we are a variant track of any other program. We are a stand alone program with a unique curriculum that is accredited by a national organization, the American Psychological Association (APA). · Comment that excessive resources are demanded in the GPR document. The resources requested in the GPR constituted a “wish list” if we were to be targeted as an investment center and are not deemed necessary for maintaining our program. · Limited external support. Three of the seven (6 FTE) clinical faculty members have external support and all faculty have applied for external support. See information in the GPR criteria descriptions below pertinent to funding. · Comment “question self-ranking of PSY progs”. External agencies such as APA and a variety of statewide and national stakeholders have written letters that support the accuracy of our high self-ratings. See information in the GPR criteria descriptions below pertinent to quality of the program. Due to an error in the WMU Information System transfer from ISIS to Banner, the Clinical Psychology program was listed as having only 3 students enrolled instead of the accurate headcount of 36 students for the upcoming year and similar numbers in each of the previous 5 years (see table below).
In response to the statement that our program has “asked for too much”, we respond that we constructed our comprehensive “wish list” to outline a range of appropriate priorities for expanding our program as an investment center for the university. These requests included a free standing clinic, expanded GA/DA support, and more faculty lines in alignment with our 2005 Compact Plan and our 2004 Academic Program Plan. However, expansion is different from maintenance of the high-demand, highly successful program we currently have. We can and expect to continue our extremely productive program at the current resource level until the WMU budget allows for a more serious consideration of our wish list for expansion. The difference between maintenance and expansion is critical in understanding our requests. No productive, forward-looking program should complacently stand pat. The Clinical Program, as any nationally recognized industrious program should, will continue to think ambitiously even when available resources require this ambition be tempered. We will briefly summarize our performance indicators for each criterion of the GPR and provide a financial impact analysis of the program. Criterion I: External Demand We receive over 100 applications annually from around the United States and other countries for 5 student positions. However, we regularly identify 12-20 applicants per year that would be truly exceptional students if we had adequate GA funding to admit them. Our incoming class is five students from a pool of 120 applicants and they have an average GRE of 1166 and an average GPA of 3.58. We made five offers and all five accepted giving us a 100% acceptance rate. Data from previous admission cycles are in the original GPR document on page 3. We could double the admissions per year and still obtain high quality students. In his review of the program, Dean Thomas Kent cited the “significant external demand for the program substantiated by a diverse applicant pool, a significant number of completed applications, and the quality of incoming students based on GRE scores, grade point averages, or recommendations.” Criterion II: Quality of Student and Program Outcomes Including Student Satisfaction and Industry Recognition The program graduates an average of 4.8 Ph.D.’s per year (5 yr avg) accounting for 30% of the total Ph.D. graduates in Psychology, the largest Ph.D. granting department at WMU. Our students have a 100% placement rate in highly competitive APA-approved internship sites. Our graduates have a 100% placement rate in jobs primarily in medical and academic settings. Recent graduates are employed full-time in organizations such as DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, University of Michigan Health Services, Eastern Michigan University, Boston University School of Public Health, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Grand Valley State University, Gonzaga University, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, West Virginia University Medical School, Yale, Brown, and University of North Carolina. These graduates serve as editorial board members for numerous professional journals, achieve professional licensure, and continue to publish after they leave our program. Our recent student satisfaction survey indicates that students are very satisfied with the training they received in the WMU Clinical Program. See detailed information in the main GPR document on pages 5-7. A report from the review team indicated that the graph in the original document was not clear so we have attached a clearer version. In his review of the program, Dean Thomas Kent cited “clear evidence of student achievement substantiated and corroborated by student publication, presentations . . . attendance at professional events, and learning/training opportunities.” Criterion III: Quality of Program Administration and Planning In the past 5 years, our graduates have an average time to graduation of approximately 5.8 years, which is below the national average (6+ years) for Clinical Ph.D. programs. The curriculum received high marks by APA site reviewers in their last report and our Graduate Student Annual Review (GSAR) process has been highly praised by the former Dean of the Graduate College, the former Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the former Provost. Elements of this process have been adopted university wide and are now required throughout the WMU graduate education system. These data speak to the effective administration, careful planning, and well-designed curriculum of the program. See GPR document beginning on page 7. Criterion IV: Compelling Program Factor The WMU clinical psychology program is one of 7 Ph.D. clinical programs in Michigan and boasts a strong behavioral science emphasis with the specific mission to train students in the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based psychological interventions. This mission is consistent with the national movement to implement empirically established best practices that is becoming standard in medicine and related health care disciplines. The clinical faculty is directly involved in all aspects of students’ training: graduate teaching, clinical supervision, and research mentorship and, thus, develops strong connections with students both personally and professionally, epitomizing the student-centered research university mission of WMU. Graduate students are deeply integrated into the academic, research and service mission of the Department/University and the APA site visitors have acknowledged the faculty as role models for this type of training (see “Compelling Program Factor” on page 17 of the GPR). Criterion V: Size, Scope and Program Productivity with Number of Students and Faculty Research/Scholarship Results The clinical faculty consists of 6 FTE tenured or tenure-track faculty, mentoring approximately 27-35 matriculated students (36 for Fall 06). Inaccurate information was provided to President Bailey who was mistakenly informed that our program had only 3 students enrolled due to coding errors in transferring data from ISIS to Banner. Corrected figures were sent to Jim Gilchrist in mid-May. During 2004-2005, clinical psychology graduate students participated in 65 professional presentations or scholarly publications. Program faculty members are also highly productive, contributing 63 professional publications and presentations in 2004-05. These data indicate high professional productivity and regular student-faculty collaboration. The proportion of clinical students at WMU involved in this level of scholarly productivity exceeds the national average (original GPR report on page 14). Faculty members serve as the Associate Editor of a major professional journal, editorial board members of multiple professional journals, and site reviewers for APA’s Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation. Additionally, three of these faculty members have or have had external funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF - Fuqua,), Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (KCMHSAS - Spates) and State of Michigan Funded Nursing Homes (SOM -LeBlanc). All Clinical faculty have applied for external grants to support research. Several have additionally received internal grant support for research. In his review of the program, Dean Thomas Kent described the “exemplary faculty success in research and scholarship substantiated and corroborated in published articles, papers, books, and other accepted evidence of research success.” See additional information in the main GPR document on page 13. Criterion VI. Impact Justification and Essentiality of the Program The Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program is essential to the health and stature of WMU in the local and state community for several reasons. First, the program provides clinical services to residents of the greater Kalamazoo region. The WMU Psychology Clinic provides ~1300 hours/year of clinical services to ~180 clients who are often uninsured and financially disadvantaged. The program (faculty and students) also provides valuable mental health services in the form of sex offender services, depression treatment programs in Kalamazoo and Vicksburg Public Schools, and diagnostic and treatment services to autistic children. In addition, the program has valuable connections with Lakeside Home for Children, Kalamazoo County Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (KCMHSAS), the US Probations Office, the Michigan Office of Education and the Department of Community Health of the State of Michigan. The program is central to the teaching mission of the department’s high demand Psychology undergraduate major and minor. Clinical doctoral students, many of whom are aspiring to teaching and academic careers, teach sections of high-demand undergraduate courses, under supervision of clinical faculty (e.g., abnormal psychology, child psychology, human sexuality, health psychology). The clinical faculty also teach large sections of several of these same courses as part of their standard teaching load (i.e., Psychology 1600, 2500, 3240, 4240) and train and supervise the relevant Clinical doctoral students in teaching the additional sections. This tiered training systems, allows the department to manage our large undergraduate major (~800 majors) and minor (~200) with a relatively small faculty size (N=19). The doctoral student instructors consistently receive very high course evaluations (average over 4 out of 5) and win All-University Outstanding Teaching Awards. This is valuable experience for students seeking faculty positions after graduation and does not compromise the quality of undergraduate education (course evaluations are comparable to those earned by faculty members). Information on the financial impact of these student instructors is summarized below. Furthermore, the Clinical students play a central role in supervising undergraduate practica in the community and on campus and routinely involve undergraduate students as assistants in their thesis and dissertation research. These activities provide an additional avenue for our faculty to ensure meaningful contact and active student engagement for our undergraduate students. Eliminating the Clinical Program will have a deleterious impact on the department’s popular major, its research mission and its service mission. See original GPR report, page 15. Criterion VII. Opportunity Analysis for Interdisciplinary or New Program Opportunities The Clinical Psychology program already has substantial interdisciplinary connections that could be built upon in future relationships. Ongoing collaborations exist both within WMU and external to WMU. Internal collaborations exist with the Geriatric Assessment Center, the Unified Clinics and the WMU Center for Disability Services. In recent years, Dr. Wayne Fuqua collaborated as co-PI (with Mike Pritchard, Philosophy; David Hartmann, Sociology, Tom VanValey, Sociology) on a National Science Foundation funded project. This three- year project resulted in the development and dissemination of information and best practices on research ethics to faculty and graduate students across the entire spectrum of academic disciplines at WMU. This multi-disciplinary group recently submitted a proposal to the Office of Research Integrity for a follow up project and plans to continue their interdisciplinary relationship. Additionally, Dr. Fuqua is one of the lead researchers on a grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to Dr. Bill Rutherford, PI (College of Aviation) to develop simulation technology to assess and improve communication skills for health care teams. This multi disciplinary project involves collaborators from a range of allied health professions at WMU and in the Kalamazoo community. Other efforts are underway, including a recent internal submission (President’s Innovation Fund) to fund an interdisciplinary center for simulation research at WMU that would heavily involve the psychology department including clinical faculty members Wayne Fuqua and Linda LeBlanc. Linda LeBlanc is also involved in an ongoing effort to develop a Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities that would be an interdisciplinary collaboration with several programs in the college of Health and Human Services. A possible interdisciplinary degree in disabilities studies might be funded and arranged through such as center.In addition, the clinical psychology program and the counseling psychology program at WMU collaborate in the following ways. Reciprocal faculty involvement on dissertation committees, course sharing or cross listing (i.e., statistics, research methods, neuropsychology, psychological testing, marital and family therapy). Outside of the university, collaborations exist with Kalamazoo Community Mental Health & Substance Abuse Agency (KCMHSAS), Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC), Lakeside Home for Children, Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies, Grand Valley State University Autism Education Center, University of Michigan, University of Sydney in Australia, Deakin University in Australia, and the WMU Clinical Psychology Program. The current collaboration with KCMHSAS and KVCC is set to expand to the WMU Nursing Program to provide training in evidence-based treatment of depression. The program additionally has an ongoing collaborative grant proposal with University of Michigan (the Katrina Project) mentioned above, which would permit a core element of that research endeavor to proceed using sophisticated technology available at that institution. In their support letter for the proposal, U of M acknowledged the Clinical Program’s lead in treatment technology and their own lead in neuroscience investigation. This combination has the potential to tap into the Life Sciences Corridor funding stream. In addition to the criteria specified in the original GPR missive, President Bailey has indicated that appeals should be considered based on newly added “strategic university objectives.” Additional Criterion I: Affirm Our Mission as a National Research UniversityThe Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology is fully accredited by one of the most rigorous accrediting bodies in the nation (APA). The students and faculty are productive researchers with national and international acclaim. The program consistently contributes to the Ph.D. graduate requirements of the Carnegie classification system. Faculty members are currently involved in research and scholarly activities with collaborators in Australia and Japan, India, Costa Rica, Jordan, and shortly, Israel. These accomplishments have been realized over the past 18 years with the current level of resources available to the program, despite its small size. Additional Criterion II: Study Emerging National and State Educational PrioritiesNational agencies and institutes concerned with healthcare, health sciences, human services and research have given very high priority to the study and implementation of evidence-based practice in health and human services. In the past 2 years, the Governor of the State of Michigan also announced and demanded implementation of such practices in Michigan’s health and human services agencies. Clinical Program faculty currently serve on Task Forces and other statewide bodies concerned with adoption and implementation of these practices. The program has received a large external grant to implement and evaluate such practices in the local Kalamazoo Community in both mental health and primary health care environments. Additional grants are in process to further this mission. WMU is one of a handful of Ph.D. level clinical programs that includes a thorough emphasis on evidence-based practice. Other APA-accredited programs around the country have recently been mandated to increase their educational focus on evidence-based practice, but few match this national educational priority as well as WMU. Importantly, the graduates of our program consistently take their comprehensive knowledge of application and research in evidence-based practice and readily find employment as the next generation of faculty members in clinical programs and in medical school settings. These graduates are successfully obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in external funding for their work, the foundations of which were established at WMU. With the advent of Michigan’s adoption of the evidence-based approach, these well-trained individuals are also more likely to seek announced opportunities in this state as well as nationally. Locally, the partnership with Kalamazoo Community Mental Health, has led to their advertising for Psychiatry positions while utilizing our research project as an enticer for recruitment in the medical field: “Psychiatrists Needed for Southwest Michigan Community Mental Health System. Kalamazoo Community Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services is seeking psychiatrists to provide service to adults in its Access Center and in the clinical settings of its contract agencies and county level Affiliates. The system is currently partnering with Western Michigan University in a comparative study of treatments for major depressive disorder. This Community Mental Health system's dedication to provide treatment through the use of evidence-based practice models defines it as a stimulating environment in which to practice”. Additional Criterion III: Select Programs As Strategic Priorities And As Investment CentersGiven the very high demand for our Ph.D. Clinical Program and the popularity of the Psychology Undergraduate major, the University would be well served by maintaining and expanding the Ph.D. Clinical Program as an investment center. We could easily double our Clinical Ph.D. student admissions without compromising the high quality of students or training. These students could teach additional or smaller undergraduate sections and generate still higher net return on investment. They could generate still more research in line with the State and National direction for this health and human service research agenda (i.e., evidence based practice). It makes sense to invest additional resources into programs that are already accredited and nationally recognized to allow those programs to grow and flourish rather than to invest in start up for new programs that might take decades to reach the level of efficiency and productivity currently evidenced by the clinical program. WMU stands to gain both substantively vis-à-vis its mission and financially by using Psychology as an investment center due to the substantial return on investment obtained from graduate assistantships for the program (see financial impact section below). Additional Criterion IV: Drive Enrollment Into Programs With The Capacity To Advance High QualityThe clinical Ph.D. program provides high quality education and training at both the undergraduate and graduate level and is in high demand. Independent evidence clearly and strongly asserts this as do the outcomes reported for our program. Enrollment at the both the graduate and undergraduate level is already extensive and holding steady even in the face of overall University enrollment declines. The clinical program has achieved these quality ends as efficiently as any other program on WMU’s campus or other campuses (see comparative faculty sizes and productivity of other institutions with Clinical Programs in the original GPR document, p. 4) and have superior graduation rates, time to completion of education and productivity. We can readily enroll additional high quality students. Additional Criterion V: Advance Strategic Academic PrioritiesThe Clinical Psychology program contributes strongly to WMU’s existing quality in health and human services. Using disability adjusted life years, major depression ranks second only to ischemic heart disease in magnitude of disease burden in established market economies. In addition, projections suggest mental illnesses will account for 15 percent of the total global disease burden by 2020 (NIMH Fact Sheet, 2001). Additionally, many diseases have behavioral risk factors that can be targeted in prevention, which is a substantial focus of some of our faculty (e.g., smoking cessation, diabetes adherence, sunscreen use, sexual assault). The Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program is active in training, developing, and conducing scientific research evaluating interventions for depression and a variety of other mental disorders in children, teens, and adults. The program’s emphasis on evidence-based interventions for mental illness is consistent with the national and worldwide movement to develop and implement empirically established best practices, a movement that already widespread in medicine and related health care disciplines. See the impact justification section for details regarding the role of the Clinical program in local mental health and human service delivery in the greater Kalamazoo area through our WMU Psychology Clinic (part of the Unified Clinics), and collaborations with local schools, medical facilities, and mental health agencies. One grant-funded project in collaboration with KCHMSAS is training nurses, psychiatry residents, and psychologists in evidence-based practice for depression. Plans are in process to submit a proposal for a supplement to the currently funded project on evidence-based treatment of depression with federal discretionary funds earmarked specifically for this purpose. Financial Evaluation of the Clinical Ph.D. Program During the course of the GPR process, the Clinical Program received ratings of 5 (self/chair) and 5(dean) and a rating of 3 (review team), which was successfully appealed to the Faculty Senate on the basis of bias and procedural errors. The program was never cited as deficient in any of the standards delineated above and, from our perspective excels on these criteria. Nevertheless, the program was recommended for elimination and both the former Provost and the President stated in public forums that the “program is too expensive” and “the program asked for too much.” These comments, when combined with cryptic notes from the Provost’s office (e.g., “demands additional resources and may make huge resource demands in the future”) suggest that a previously undisclosed financial evaluation criterion may have been applied solely to our program. In response to concerns about the financial aspects of the Clinical Program, we have conducted the following financial impact analysis of the Clinical psychology program separate from the Department of Psychology at large. These data are publicly available from university sources. We contend that our program is not excessively expensive in any conventional sense of that term, especially when considering net return on investment. Instead, we suggest that independent of the value of our contribution to the university’s mission as a student-centered research institution, the program is a great financial investment for the university. In the year 2004-2005, the Clinical Ph.D. Program accounted for approximately 2425 undergraduate seats per year in courses taught by Clinical doctoral students. These seats generated 7, 275 semester credit hours and $1, 591,000 dollars in tuition revenue and associated State Appropriation revenues of $1,066,409 for a total revenue of 2.65 million dollars based on the teaching efforts of Clinical graduate students. The cost of graduate assistantship support for these Clinical students was $200,084.00. Thus, the net return on investment for those assistantships was $2, 457,981. See the table below for additional details. These figures do not include any of the practicum or independent research courses that doctoral students assist in teaching. Thus, the Clinical Psychology program generates a strong net return on investment that represents 36% of the total revenue generated by the psychology department overall ($7,288,755). Faculty and staff costs for the program certainly do not exceed the revenue generated by these very valuable doctoral instructors. In short, the psychology department, and the Clinical Psychology program in particular, operates as a “cash-cow” for WMU while contributing greatly to its research and service missions. Elimination of this program would result in a considerable revenue loss that would seem both ill-advised and unaffordable by WMU given the often stated budget crisis it now faces. Additionally, data for the department as a whole are presented in the graph that is attached as an appendix. The clinical program is one of the three graduate programs in the department, accounts for approximately 1/3 of Ph.D. graduates, and approximately 1/3 of total revenue. Thus, our contribution and consumption of revenue and other quality indicators occurs at a constant proportion. Figure 1 depicts the net 2002-2003 on-campus revenues for departments across the university with Psychology ranking as the sixth highest net revenue generator on campus. Nationally, psychology departments are highly efficient with respect to instructional expenditures per student credit hour (see Delaware data available from the Provost’s office). Clinical psychology represents an important part of the health and well-being of the Psychology department and is happy to continue to contribute to the fiscal contribution that our department makes to the university.
Summary and Conclusions
In summary, this document appeals the recommendation to eliminate the Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology on the grounds that the program (1) meets the stated criteria of the Graduate Program Review (GPR), (2) serves as a substantial financial asset to University, and (3) falls directly in line with the stated strategic objectives of the University. We believe that the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program meets all of the GPR criteria for excellence as well as the newly identified criteria specified for the appeal process. Additionally, our evidence indicates that the statements about the financial viability of our program made by the Provost’s office and the President (based on information she received from the Provost’s office) have no merit. The Psychology department in general and the Clinical Program specifically produce a high net return on investment and contribute to WMU’s mission as a student centered research institution. This Ph.D. program is one that is highly valued by consumers including students and alumni, state-level stakeholders, and national organizations. Recently, many of these individuals from around the country and throughout Michigan have written letters to Trustees, administrators, and news outlets to express their dismay and disbelief that our program is slated for termination. They value the program for the quality of it’s graduate training and mentoring and for filling the niche that our program has in creating scholar-practitioners who are well trained in evidence-based practices and competitive in the marketplace. Beginning at the Graduate Review Team level and continuing through the Provostial review, there were questionable actions on the part of the reviewers. The GRT had the opportunity to ask the department questions but did not achieve clarity about graduate enrollment for the clinical program because they did not ask about the specifics of our enrollment. Even the chair of the GRT recommended sustaining the program in spite of remaining questions and expressed surprise at the Provost’s decision. Neither were any queries about the size of our program directed to the department from the Provost’s office though there clearly were erroneous data in the Banner System. Questions about our enrollment were reflected in the minutes of the Provost’s team meetings but no direct queries were forthcoming. It is unclear why decisions were made about our program when questions still existed, but we petition the appeals committee to view the data included in this document and the GPR document and ask any pertinent questions that might lead you to make a well-informed decision about the merit of our program. We are very willing to answer questions and believe that you will find substantial evidence of the merit of our program. |
