Ohio Graduate Student Forum Report

Ohio Graduate Student Forum Report

Developed in collaboration between

The Ohio Board of Regents

and

Council of Graduate Students, The Ohio State University

Executive Summary:

On Thursday, October 13, 2011 the Ohio Graduate Student Innovation forum was held in the Cartoon Rooms of the Ohio Union. The forum was developed through the collaboration between the Ohio Board of Regents (http://www.ohiohighered.org/), the Ohio Department of Development (http://www.development.ohio.gov/), and the Council of Graduate Students (http://cgs.osu.edu).

The aim of the forum was to engage graduate students in a direct dialogue with state leadership on what issues they face after graduation and specifically how the state can help in retaining and attracting the best graduate students to the State of Ohio. The forum provided an avenue for graduate students across the state to provide actionable ideas and begin what is hoped to be the first step of a future of direct dialogue between graduate students and state leadership.

Of the participants, approximately 50% were students at Ohio State and the remaining students were from colleges and universities across the state. Prior to attending the event, students were asked to fill in a pre-forum survey to help qualitatively measure the effectiveness of the forum.

The forum began with opening remarks by Vijay Gadepally (President, Council of Graduate Students). Chancellor Jim Petro (Chancellor, Ohio Board of Regents) followed the welcome with remarks that motivated the need to have such a dialogue and the importance of higher education to the future of the State of Ohio. Dr. Patrick Osmer (Dean, Graduate School, The Ohio State University). Dr. Norm Chagnon (Deputy Chief, Technology & Innovation Division, Ohio Dept. of Development) provided the audience with a background of present initiatives and focus areas that the state is looking towards.

Brian Needham (Delegate, Council of Graduate Students) provided information about the event and the first item of discussion was presented. Participants had about 10 minutes to discuss within their groups of 8 people. After the internal discussion time, ideas were shared with the other groups and audience. Three discussion items were presented and the generated ideas are summarized in this report. After the group discussion component, the floor was opened and participants were asked to engage in broad discussion. The open discussion also allowed participants to ask questions directly to state leadership and university administrators. Dr. E Gordon Gee (President, The Ohio State University) was also present during the open discussion and provided his views on the future of graduate education.

This report is meant to summarize the forum. We begin with a detailed description of the program. We present the results of the pre-forum survey along with details about the participants. We finally present the results of the group and open discussions.

The forum and subsequent report would not be possible without the help and support of the following individuals: Caitlyn Riederer (Chief of Staff, Council of Graduate Students), Brian Needham (Delegate, Council of Graduate Students), Allison Sturm (Secretary, Council of Graduate Students), Allen Cochran (Vice President, Council of Graduate Students), Zach Waymer (Director, Economic Advancement, Ohio Board of Regents), and Noah Sudow (Assistant Vice Chancellor, Economic Advancement, Ohio Board of Regents).

We believe that the forum was a great success and many great ideas were generated. We look forward to having similar events in the future and strongly believe that such a direct dialogue is imperative in attracting the best and brightest to the State of Ohio! We hope that this forum was just the first step in what proves to be a long and mutually beneficial partnership between state leadership and graduate students.

The Council of Graduate Students at The Ohio State University looks forward to the future of graduate education in the State of Ohio!

I thank you for reading this report and would be happy to hear your comments, questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Vijay N. Gadepally

President | Council of Graduate Students

The Ohio State University

Email:

Phone: 614-292-4380

Forum Overview

This section contains information about the forum and event execution

Introduction

On Thursday, October 13, 2011, The Ohio State University’s Council of Graduate Students (CGS) organized a forum for the state government to engage in discussion with graduate students in Ohio. The forum was organized in collaboration with the Ohio Board of Regents (BOR).

Forum Details
Time: / 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Date: / Thursday, October 13, 2011
Place: / Cartoon Room, Ohio Union

Mission

To generate ideas, improve communication, and increase awareness to promote job creation in the State of Ohio.

Program Summary

The program began with a welcoming session, where participants learned about the distinguished guests, their background, and their interests. Following this, distinguished guests (Chancellor Jim Petro and Dean Pat Osmer) were asked to make a few remarks about the forum and the intended output. In order to inform the audience of present initiatives, resources available, and current issues, state leadership (Dr. Norm Chagnon) gave a brief presentation. Participants then broke out into groups to brainstorm on selected discussion topics, in a World Café format. Groups had seven to ten minutes to discuss each question. At the end of the allotted time, five minutes was provided for groups to share their results with the audience. This process repeated for three questions. The participants then reconvened and closing remarks were presented by President Gordon Gee. The program closed with a brief review of the day’s activities, and discussion of further steps. An informal networking event in Woody’s Tavern followed.

Discussion Items

1) What kind of entrepreneurial activity are you interested in and what are your biggest fears for the State of Ohio?

2) What is going to decide where you are after you graduate? Would you like to stay in the State of Ohio after graduation? If not, what is keeping you from the state? If so, what is keeping you in the state? Do you feel connected to the state?

3) What areas of investment for the government to focus on will provide the greatest benefit in terms of retaining and advancing graduate students? What strategies can the state employ in improving the relationship between graduate students and state leadership?

Intended Outcomes

· Ideas on how the state can attract more graduate students to pursue their careers and entrepreneurial ventures in Ohio.

· Increased communication between graduate students and state leadership.

· Increased awareness of both:

o The issues and topics that graduate students face when launching a new business or pursuing career paths.

o The issues that state governments face and how they can help attract more graduate students to stay within the state.

· Greater knowledge of the resources Ohio currently offers educated professionals and what could be useful to offer in the future.

· Student understanding of how ideas can come to fruition through Ohio’s resources.

· Report summarizing the forum, generated ideas, and suggested future direction.

Agenda

Event began at 4:00 p.m. in the Cartoon Room at the Ohio Union
4:00 – 4:10 p.m. / Welcome and Introduction / Vijay Gadepally
4:10 – 4:20 p.m. / Remarks by Chancellor Petro / Chancellor Petro
4:20 - 4:30 p.m. / Remarks by Dean Pat Osmer / Dean Pat Osmer
4:30 – 4:50 p.m. / Ohio Jobs presentation / Norm Chagnon
4:50 – 5:00 p.m. / Overview of agenda and break / Brian Needham
5:00 – 5:50 p.m. / Break-out groups / All
5:50 – 5:55 p.m. / Closing remarks / Dr. Gordon Gee
5:55 – 6:00 p.m. / Opening discussion / All

*Student Participants filled out an electronic survey prior to the forum to gather preliminary information.

Pre-Forum Survey Results

This section contains information about participants and their level of knowledge of present initiatives within the state of Ohio

Participant statistics

For the following, respondents were asked to respond on a 5 point scale based on how much they agreed with the statement, where 1 means “Completely disagree” and 5 means “Completely agree.” These responses were collected prior to the Forum.

Programs mentioned by respondents, indicating awareness (# of times mentioned)

Third Frontier (3)

Jobs Ohio (1)

Choose Ohio First Program (1)

Tech Columbus (1)

Roundtable Discussion

The following section contains notes taken from the roundtable discussions. Participants had seven to ten minutes to discuss each question among their groups of five to seven others.

1) What kind of entrepreneurial activity are you interested in and what are your biggest fears for the State of Ohio?

Overall themes: Healthcare (both opportunity and threat)

Interested activities

· Combining several disciplines in a business (i.e. healthcare system gets registered dietitians and athletic trainers)

· Following the footsteps of manufacturing and looking at entire process of value chain to generate economic growth through the system.

· Online business opportunities

· Growing industries creatively using green technology.

· Creating a company that has good working environment to attract good talent to become freight drivers.

· Opportunities to bring insights from research to business communities.

Fears

· There is ample funding for pre-seeder stage but beyond that, Venture Capital (VC) funding is scarce (if second round of funding is needed) – may cause business to be driven outside the state.

· Keeping market intact when business is increasingly online and thus location is not as important as it used to be.

· Spending time and effort in the initial start-up

· Keeping healthcare costs at bay and what government intervention might do.

· Fear that large firms may be too focused on what we currently have (large institutions, research centers) that there is not enough focus on growth going forward.

· Challenges with international students for hiring and getting visas for entrepreneurial activities.

· Taxes are a key challenge to entrepreneurial activity.

· Environment could become contaminated.

Keeping you in the state

· Lower cost of living

· Being near family and friends

· The grassroots arts community (i.e. Short North)

· Would stay in state if there was a particular opportunity with a lot of opportunities. People will go where the jobs are.

Keeping you out of state

· We are not keeping people in the field of nuclear engineering research, R&D.

o One suggestion is to eliminate state income tax.

· Could do a better job at building relationships with out-of-state companies so they relocate or build additional plants here.

· Understanding the influence that family and spousal commitments have on location decisions.

· Need more support for international students transitioning from student to workforce.

o International students have lack of federal funding to stay.

· It is difficult to get consulting experience in Ohio. Need more industry to come in so people can become experts.

· Lack of awareness. People feel that lots of people who moved out of Ohio would like to move back but there is a lack of a marketing/awareness, so these people do not know of the great resources or opportunities they could encounter if they moved back to Ohio.

· Host more events like this between government, private sector, and multi-disciplinary programs.

o More collaboration equals more ideas created. The more ideas created equals the more ideas that will stay in Ohio, which will in turn attract research funding, incentives for graduate students.

o Basically, increase communication and collaboration between government, private sector, and multi-disciplinary programs.

· General lack of communication between state and graduate student community.

· Host more start-up weekends

· Sponsor fulltime internship positions for new graduates to help graduates stay in the state of Ohio.

· Create more job opportunities in emerging technology (specifically Green Tech)

· Do more student exchange partnerships with small businesses.

· Loan forgiveness program for new graduates in the state of Ohio.

· Recognition programs for those who move through their program quickly.

· Tax incentives to stay in the state.

· Get businesses involved to help funding of graduate students – create more partnerships between graduate programs and private industry.

· Young people like culture and arts (areas like Short North) so invest in creating those will attract more young professionals and drive local businesses.

· Simplified, one-stop shop resource center for entrepreneurs.

· Bring community leaders into less exposed disciplines of grad school (i.e. Bio)

*Due to time constraints, only 3 of the 4 planned questions were discussed

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