Higher ed board told deposed dean did well for Oregon State

Some Oregon State University faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine are protesting the college’s allotted budget and the recent dismissal of Dean Howard Gelberg.

Earlier this week, faculty in the department of clinical sciences voted 17-1 in favor of a statement advocating changes in funding the college, and defended Gelberg, saying his leadership brought the college to the higher status it enjoys today.

On Friday, they sent their statement to OSU officials and the State Board of Higher Education. In it they urged the state Legislature to investigate how OSU allocates state resources, and expressed interest in having the college be funded as a line item in the state budget.

The faculty also objected to the firing of Gelberg, who was dismissed in January over budgetary disagreements with OSU’s administration.

“His leadership has allowed the college to become a fully accredited college of veterinary medicine, and has advanced our quest to be a program of excellence and a source of pride in accomplishment for the citizens of Oregon,” the statement said.

“His insistence that adequate state funding be delivered to the College of Veterinary Medicine was a matter of principle, and represented the only means available to protect the vested interests of the college without forfeiting the development accomplishments he worked so hard to achieve.”

The OUS chancellor, members of the State Board of Higher Education, and OSU officials, including Provost Sabah Randhawa and President Ed Ray, received copies.

They were occupied all day in the monthly state board meeting, and were unable to review the statement and respond by press time, according to Di Saunders, OUS director of communications.

The College of Veterinary Medicine has 50 faculty members, 23 in the department of biomedical sciences, and 27 in the department of clinical sciences.

According to Luanne Lawrence, OSU vice president for university advancement, the College of Veterinary Medicine dipped into the red under Gelberg’s leadership.

At the end of the 2005 fiscal year in June, the college had a $200,000 deficit. By Dec. 31, that figure had jumped to a projected $1.5 million for the 2006 fiscal year.

Rich Holdren, interim dean of the college, thinks $1.5 million estimate is high, but he didn’t have a more specific figure at this time.

“It should be a lot smaller than that,” he said. “We’re maybe slowing spending a little bit, but we’re still meeting all the needs of the students and the college.”

Gelberg counters that “deficit” is a misleading term. He said he gave OSU officials a budget reflecting the money he needed to run the expanding college, as well as the revenue the college brings in from tuition, state funding, hospital fees and research grants.

Gelberg said he spent according to his budget, which exceeded the $12.7 million the university allocated for fiscal year 2006. The college had a 2005 budget of $11.3 million.

“We’ve been very conservative and fiscally responsible,” Gelberg said.

Since Gelberg accepted the deanship at OSU in 2001, the College of Veterinary Medicine has expanded in terms of its facilities, enrollment and program offerings.

One goal he set upon arriving and has since accomplished was establishing a four-year resident program. In previous years, OSU veterinary students spent nearly half of their four-year program at Washington State University in Pullman, where they received small-animal training. This cost OSU up to $1.8 million a year.

OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine celebrated the grand opening of its $14 million Lois Bates Acheson Veterinary Teaching Hospital Small Animal Clinic last April.

With this addition, OSU can now admit 48 students per year into the college, compared to the previous limit of 36. With all the new technicians, office staff and veterinary specialists necessitated by the new small animal clinic, staff and faculty numbers have increased by 40 percent.

All of this growth costs money, more than OSU allotted, Gelberg said.

Gelberg said he’s “flattered” by the statement passed by his colleagues.

“It’s nice to have their support. I’m hoping some good will come out of this, at least for the college.”

David Sisson, professor and head of the department of clinical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, disagreed with Gelberg’s firing, and shares many of his concerns about the budget.

Sisson and Gelberg question why OUS provides about 56 percent of the estimated cost of educating only 36 veterinary medicine students, leaving 12 students unfunded by the system.

Now that OSU isn’t making payments to WSU to train students in small animal medicine, Gelberg and Sisson said they expected the money that had been going to WSU to be added to their college’s budget. However, they said, that did not happen.

“Although our list of accomplishments is long, central campus continues to withhold substantive support for the college, ... which seems to bear the brunt of any fiscal challenges that OSU encounters,” the faculty statement continued. “The budgetary dilemma of OSU will not be remedied by firing the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, who simply tried to provide a program of excellence for the state. That was, after all, his charge.”

OSU is beginning its search for a new dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. The provost’s office has drafted a job description, and a search committee is being assembled.

Mary Ann Albright covers higher education. She can be reached at maryann.albright@lee.net or 758-9518.