President, Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI)

To: Marcy Driscoll President, Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI) From: Robert Bangert-Drowns Chair, CADREI Futures Committee Subject: Summary of deliberations on CADREI membership criteria Date: August 22, 2016

On occasion, the Executive Committee considers membership applications from institutions that do not currently meet CADREI membership criteria. To contribute to these considerations, CADREI’s Futures Committee engaged in a full and lively conversation about the current membership criteria. This conversation extends the one begun among participants at CADREI’s February meeting at AACTE. The Futures Committee examined various options in changes to membership criteria, the intended and unintended consequences of such changes, opportunities and potential dilemmas arising from such changes, and our sense of the disposition of our CADREI colleagues toward a change in membership policy.

Three initial alternatives In general terms, three alternative stances toward CADREI membership emerged early in Futures Committee’s conversations:

Alternative 1: Retain the current criteria. The CADREI constitution confines membership to institutions designated as high or very high research institutions. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has traditionally provided these classifications, only recently transferring responsibility for these classifications to Indiana University Bloomington's Center for Postsecondary Research. The “high” and “very high” classifications, typically abbreviated R1 and R2 respectively, have changed their names to “highest” and “higher” research activity, respectively. There is an R3 classification, “moderate” research activity, which includes all remaining doctoral institutions.

There are important advantages to relying on Carnegie R1 and R2 classifications as the sole criterion for CADREI membership. The classifications are made independently of CADREI, thus supporting impartial decisions for membership. The classifications are well known and widely accepted, and their use would define a reasonably coherent group of institutions: Schools and Colleges of Education (SCOEs) situated in research-intensive doctoral institutions. Classifications are updated every five years, providing an opportunity to renew CADREI membership at the same intervals. Use of the Carnegie standards requires no judgment on the part of CADREI personnel, essentially a simple clerical review of provided lists. Ease of application, coherence of membership, impartial judgments, widely known and understood standard—these are the chief advantages of retaining the R1/R2 classifications for membership criteria. 2

Alternative 2: Carnegie classification with possibility for exceptions. A potential weakness of using the Carnegie classification as the sole criterion for CADREI membership is that it emphasizes a characteristic of the home institution, not the School or College of Education per se. Certainly, there are SCOEs that are themselves research-intensive, even though their home institution may not be classified as an R1 or R2. Is CADREI diminished in its mission by excluding these research-intensive SCOEs? Would intellectual and leadership contributions from these SCOES benefit CADREI?

An alternative to Option 1 would be to take advantage of all the benefits of using the Carnegie Classification for the bulk of CADREI membership, but allow research-intensive SCOEs to apply for membership as an exception to the general standard. This option would allow CADREI to benefit from inclusion of SCOEs that resemble current members but are otherwise excluded because they are not situated within institutions classified as “higher or highest research activity.”

Greater inclusion could come at cost to CADREI, however. CADREI will have to define what constitutes acceptable exceptional membership criteria. Those criteria either have to be explicitly defined, or CADREI could allow applicants to apply for exceptional admission on a case-by-case basis. Second, CADREI would need to create a process for consideration of exceptional applications. Exceptional applications could be reviewed by the Executive Committee or by a standing application review committee. Those applications could be put to a vote by the full membership, after recommendations by a review committee. The crucial question regarding consideration of Option 2 is whether the benefits derived from including exceptional research-intensive Schools and Colleges of Education outweigh the challenges of sustaining a system to review exceptional applications.

Alternative 3: School/College-specific membership decisions. If CADREI members should be research-intensive Schools and Colleges of Education, then the Carnegie classification system is a rather crude standard for determining membership. Though research-intensive SCOES are often found in R1 and R2 institutions, there are two kinds of “errors” that can result from the use of Carnegie standards: inclusion of “lower research activity” SCOEs even though they are situated in “high research activity” institutions and exclusion of research-intensive SCOEs because they are not in “high research activity” institutions. If the goal is to populate CADREI with high-research SCOEs, then perhaps the unit to be reviewed is not the home institution (as is the case with Carnegie classification), but each SCOE itself.

The challenges for option 3 are identical to the challenges for exceptional applications in option 2. That is, CADREI would have to define criteria for demonstrating sufficient SCOE- specific research activity or allow each member to build a case for its inclusion; and CADREI would have to create a sustainable, impartial, accurate means of reviewing member applications. Unlike option 2, SCOE-specific demonstration of sufficient research activity would require all member applications to be reviewed, so the volume of review would be more labor intensive. Does the more rigorous scrutiny of the research activity of every member SCOE meaningfully advance the mission of CADREI?

Areas of consensus As these initial alternative stances were being considered, a number of consensual facts, themes, and principles emerged to guide the Futures Committee’s dialogue.

 CADREI seeks membership that allows meetings of manageable size and sufficient coherence to facilitate personal involvement of participants in substantive discussions about the preparation of educators and general education policy, in careful professional development around leadership, and in effective networking.  Because CADREI convenes leaders of research-intensive SCOEs, it can offer uniquely important perspectives on the education profession to other academics, political leaders, and policy-makers.  The current criterion for membership is an SCOE in a Carnegie-classified R1 or R2 institution. (The “Carnegie Classifications” are conducted by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University School of Education. All doctoral institutions—universities that award at least 20 scholarship doctoral degrees in a given year—are classified as “highest research activity (R1),” “higher research activity (R2),” or “moderate research activity (R3).” Classification is based on aggregate and per capita research expenditures, staffing, and doctoral conferrals.)  The R1/R2 criterion can be employed simply and impartially by CADREI. The classification of doctoral universities is updated every five years and publicly available to all. The classifications are widely used in analyses of higher education.  CADREI’s Constitution allows an exception to membership for other institutions “designated as minority serving that offer doctoral degree programs that, in the judgment of the Executive Committee, are comparable in mission and scope to the APLU institutions.”  The R1/R2 criterion classifies the host institution of a SCOE, not the SCOE itself. Exclusive use of the R1/R2 criterion excludes some research-intensive or research- aspiring SCOE’s within R3 institutions (“moderate” research activity doctoral universities).  CADREI membership already includes SCOEs that do not meet the R1/R2 criterion. Some examples of these deviations from the CADREI criterion include institutions that were re-classified after becoming members and did not withdraw from membership, deans who moved from R1/R2 institutions and maintained their memberships after the transition, and universities that are not R1/R2 institutions but are regional leaders in educational innovation and scholarship.

Proposal for alternative to current CADREI membership criteria On the basis of these facts, themes, and principles, the members of the Futures Committee considered a proposal that was intended to capture the strengths and diminish the challenges associated with the three initial alternatives: exclusive use of the R1/R2 criterion, use of R1/R2 classification and adjudicated exceptions, and use of SCOE-specific criteria. Members of the Futures Committee agreed that the proposal below was a plausible alternative to the current CADREI criteria and should be considered by the Executive Committee and possibly by the full membership. However, it is important to note that this proposal was NOT approved by all on the Futures Committee.

Proposed CADREI membership criteria 1. CADREI will retain as its primary criterion for membership the R1/R2 Carnegie classification of the home institution. 2. CADREI will permit SCOEs in R3 institutions (moderate research activity doctoral institutions) to apply to the Executive Board for affiliate status. a. Criteria for application to CADREI will parallel those for Carnegie classification of institutions, namely, aggregate research expenditures, per capita research expenditures, personnel for the support of research, and size of doctoral enterprise. Other supplementary evidence (such as national rankings by various entities) also can be offered in support of an application. b. CADREI affiliates will be non-voting members. Only voting members can serve on the Executive Board. c. CADREI affiliates will pay a modestly higher membership fee (or, put in another way, R1/R2 institutions will pay a modestly discounted fee). d. CADREI affiliates will fully participate in all meetings, discussions, professional development opportunities, subcommittees, etc. 3. CADREI meetings will be primarily open to voting and affiliate members only. CADREI may designate specific public sessions at national meetings (e.g., at AERA or AACTE) in order to remain in dialogue with other SCOEs, research institutions, policy agencies, and other stakeholders. 4. All memberships (voting and affiliate) will be subject to review in five-year intervals (coinciding with five-year updates to Carnegie classification).

Members of the ad hoc CADREI Futures Committee:

Robert Bangert-Drowns, University at Albany (chair) Mark Ginsburg, George Mason University Ming Li, Western Michigan University Debbie Mercer, Kansas State University Kim Metcalf, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Renee Middleton, Ohio University