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| Chapman University: Comparative Advantage |
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| Written by Meghan Flynn |
| Sunday, 31 May 2009 23:00 |
 When he arrived at the base of the mountain earlier this year, Doti said he was, understandably, intimidated by the 16,100-foot peak. But he was immediately struck with a comparison between the climb and his success at Chapman. “I reminded myself that instead of thinking about the peak, I need to think about getting to camp one or getting over this first chasm,” he explained. “When I first became president, I told my team that we were going to make Chapman, at the time ranked 92 in U.S. News and World Report’s lists, one of the more selective schools in the country, a goal that at the time was a stretch, to say the least. But it’s amazing what slow and steady progress from one small goal to the next can achieve.”  Doti, who said running marathons and climbing mountains are his hobbies, announced earlier this year his team’s priorities for the fourth five-year strategic plan since he became president of the university in 1991. Chapman has changed a lot in that time, but Doti said the plan’s main strategy hasn’t: capitalize on the school’s comparative advantages.An economist by trade, Doti explained limited resources require decisionmakers to choose what warrants investment and attention. About 10 years ago, Doti and his team decided to turn Chapman’s small film department into a nationally recognized film school because of the talented leadership and faculty already in place and the school’s advantageous location near Hollywood. Today, the Dodge College of Film & Media Arts is one of the highest rated film schools in the country, and Chapman will continue to invest in it as part of its most recent five-year plan. By 2012, the school will have its own filmmakers’ village, a new residential housing complex that Doti hopes to serve as a model for living and learning environments in other film schools. The school will also get more digital animation labs, additional equipment, and an IT upgrade. Doti’s team is also considering the idea of building a back-lot studio. Chapman’s other comparative advantage, according to Doti, is the university’s tradition of interdisciplinary research and study. “Our schools offer a variety of joint programs; the disciplinary silos that impede interdisciplinary work at other universities don’t seem to exist here,” Doti wrote in the December 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. That philosophy explains why, unlike many universities, Chapman has high-performing schools and programs in a wide variety of fields instead of just a few. In this most recent five-year plan, the school is bringing in new departments to further exploit that advantage. One is is computational science, a new type of scientific discipline that uses mainframe computers to conduct research in the fields of mathematics, physics, engineering, and computer science. Doti said these new departments will increase the ability of faculty to pursue unique, interdisciplinary research projects, but that the school encourages that in a number of ways. “We weight our tenure decisions on the degree to which faculty engage in such research. In addition, we look to recruit not just the best people in a field, but also a research team of diverse scholars,” he said, citing the recent addition of Professor Vernon Smith to the school’s economics department. Smith is a Nobel Laureate in economics and holds one of the 50 endowed chairs and professorships Chapman has, up from one in 1991. Smith earned his Nobel Prize for research in experimental economics and holds a joint appointment in the Argyros School of Business and Economics as well as the School of Law. Doti noted that the presence of Dr. Smith and his team helps explain why the Argyros School was recently ranked by BusinessWeek in the top 50 undergraduate programs. Doti proudly said that Smith, who has been affiliated with several universities in the course of his career, recently told Doti that he plans to donate his Nobel prize to the Chapman library. “Increasing the number of endowed chairs and professorships has gone a long way in attracting the best faculty, which in turn has improved the caliber of the students looking at Chapman. But the reason students and faculty decide to come here, and stay here, is its warm, family atmosphere,” said Doti. A long and winding road It was a similar sentiment that initially brought Doti to Chapman as an economics professor in 1974. “I just fell in love with the place,” he told the Orange County Register in November 2007. “There was something about it I liked. I felt I could spend my entire career here.” And he hasn’t looked back since. Chapman was founded initially in 1861 as Hesperian College near Sacramento. In 1920, contributions from Charles C. Chapman of Orange County helped build a new campus for the school near LA. Chapman, as the school became known, moved to the former location of the Orange Union High School in 1954. At the time, the school had only 475 students. In the 1970s, the oil crisis, dropping enrollment, and tuition problems were driving the small college toward bankruptcy. When Doti was appointed president in 1991 after two terms as temporary president, the school had an $18 million endowment and an annual loss of nearly $2 million. In the first year, Doti cut that loss to $250,000 and in the second, he eliminated it entirely. The school has enjoyed a surplus every year since. One of the major contributing factors to success was the controversial decision to eliminate the school’s Division I and II sports programs to free up $1.2 million for academic scholarships. That was part of Doti’s plan to increase the school’s selectivity. It worked: average SAT scores jumped from 997 to 1219 (1830 according to the new SAT scale) in 2008. As a result, in the recent U.S. News & World Report ranking, Chapman was number two in student selectivity out of 127 colleges and universities. In December, Chapman’s net assets hit $500 million; not bad for school that was selling whatever it could to pay the bills and cutting programs 30 years before. The school comprises 80 acres, 44 permanent buildings, and enrolls 6,022 students, including 5,223 full-time graduate and undergraduate students who live on its Orange Campus. As part of its new strategic plan, the school aims to enroll 6,545 full-time students, an increase of just under 15%, by 2012. Doti and his team are more concerned these days with maintaining Chapman’s special atmosphere. The already beautiful campus will see several improvements over the next few years to ensure it continues to attract prospective students and faculty members. He plans to shoot for every national accreditation the school is eligible for to continue inspiring the staff to a higher level of quality. “The school has changed a lot for the better from 35 years ago when I first arrived, and we’ve been able to maintain a community spirit through the changes. I’m confidant that spirit will never leave so long as we continue to value it,” said Doti. He and his team to have a good handle on the intangible aspects of making a university successful. Part of the Chapman leadership team accompanied Doti on his climb of Mt. Vinson, and at their final dinner together, Doti said most of the night was spent talking about how exhilarating it was to work so closely as a team and have fun helping each other. He said such teamwork is essential in building a preeminent university and added that perhaps the most important thing he’s learned on his numerous climbs is that leadership isn’t about one person, but a group. “The most important thing I can do as a leader of this institution is create a feeling of self-worth on campus; empowering every employee to feel like an agent of change in helping the university achieve a shared vision,” he said. One of his favorite ways of doing so is to write personal notes or e-mails to individuals to acknowledge their exemplary work and importance to Chapman. “Since the beginning of my time here, I’ve striven to treat people with respect and dignity, and that attitude has permeated the culture here and created a family atmosphere everyone recognizes and enjoys,” concluded Doti. |