Running head: Michigan State University’s Task Environment 1

Michigan State University’s Task Environment

August 7, 2018

Deirdre Musser

Concordia University Ann Arbor

Michigan State University’s Task Environment 2

Michigan State University (MSU) is a large public institution with many resources that

span across the entire institution. The task of managing all of these resources for the institution is

quite a large undertaking and takes a hefty investment. With the university’s total student

population exceeding 50,000 it is important to ensure that the proper resources are put into place

so that inputs can become outputs in an effective and efficient fashion. The resources that the

university has are perhaps the most vital materials that the task environment has to work with

and depend upon. The specific resources of faculty and staff become imperative in the task

environment to daily functions and the nature of these individuals effects the completion of these

daily functions. These daily functions span across the entire university through both the input

and output stages and are supported by various programs such as residential colleges or

communities. This essay will begin to unpack these areas and look into how these influence the

university’s efficiency and effectiveness.

First and foremost it is important to understand where such a large public institution

receives its funding, how many students it supports, and the number of faculty and staff that are

employed with the institution. MSU has a total of 50,019 students enrolled with 38,996 in

undergraduate programs and 11,023 in graduate or professional programs (Youatt, J. P., 2017).

According to MSU’s Human Resources Administrators and Supervisors webpage, roughly

17,000 of the student population are hired per year in various positions across the university

(Student Hiring Information, n.d.). With about 34 percent of the total student population working

for the university in some capacity, the dependence the university on student workers is quite

hefty. Not only are these students paying tuition along with the rest of the student population but

they are acting as a resource for the university through their employment. Since MSU is a public
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institution they do not depend solely on tuition from their students as a resource but also on the

students who help to support the task environment functions through student employment.

Other than students, the university also depends heavily on faculty and staff to support

the managerial functions associated with moving a student from an input to an output. The types

of faculty are split into tenure system faculty and fixed tern faculty while all other staff are split

into student assistants, other academic staff, and nonacademic staff (Office of Planning and

Budgets, 2018). The total number of tenure system faculty is 1,998 and the total for fixed term

faculty is 1,088 (Office of Planning and Budgets, 2018). Student assistants total to 1,623, other

academic staff to 2,198, and nonacademic staff to 7,211 (Office of Planning and Budgets, 2018).

With both faculty and staff the institution has a total of 14,118 employees that are vital resources

to MSU as a whole (Office of Planning and Budgets, 2018). Many of the faculty may only teach

and are invested in the technical core of the university but some may also crossover to the task

environment and provide support to the managerial functions of the institution. Nonetheless, both

faculty and staff serve an important function when it comes to ensuring that the process of

moving a student from the input to output stage is effective and efficient.

From my experience at MSU I never noticed a pattern in my professors as far as a certain

gender, age, or race for all of my general education courses. However, when it came to my major

courses within the Eli Broad School of Business I did notice a bit of a pattern according to

gender. Most of my professors for a majority of my prerequisite major courses and my major

specific courses were usually older males. In fall of 2017 MSU reported having a total of 18.9%

of faculty that were aged 65 or older and ages 60-64 were 13.4% of the faculty (Office of

Planning and Budgets, 2018). With the older population representing the majority, the future

may start to look scare in terms of the amount of faculty. This has been a recent issue for the K-
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12 school system as many of the older teachers are retiring and there are not enough new

teachers to fill their spots. On the college level there may be more room for who is qualified to

be a professor or not, which could offer colleges a larger pool of individuals to hire. However,

when the older generation retires the research, wisdom, knowledge, and most of all experience

will not be at as high of a level. I wonder if this could create somewhat of a small crisis at a place

like MSU. Maybe there would not be as high of an output of research, or the caliber of courses

could take some time to return to where they were, or the foundation that the previous faculty

created could provide a successful start for newer faculty.

On another note, the level of faculty new hires that are women has stayed within the

general range of 40% - 50% and the number of males in the tenure and fixed term faculty track

has generally been higher than female (Office of Planning and Budgets, 2018). When looking at

this data I can see how this very fact is true just by evaluating my own experience with several

different levels of faculty. I do not think that this has a negative connotation when it comes to

looking at faculty as “male domination” was never an established culture during my time at

MSU.

On the other hand, the student population on the undergraduate, graduate, and

professional levels is made up of a greater percentage of women than men (Office of Planning

and Budgets, 2018). The Office of Planning and Budgets (2018) also shows that a vast majority

of students on all level identify as white. When I look at these statistics I wonder why? Why is it

that such a large public institution with a massive amount of programs and diverse opportunities

has a mainly white population? Of course, this is not a new thought by any means and is

something that many institutions across the United States struggle with. What can we as higher

education leaders do to change this and how can our societies culture reflect a change like this?
Michigan State University’s Task Environment 5

Finally, we cannot forget about the resource of money for the university. The institution

is required, as a public university, to publish their revenues and expenditures every year. The

most recently reported year is 2017-2018 and the General Fund Budget revenues were totaled to

$1,362,100,000 with five different categories included (Michigan State University, n.d.). The

first category is student tuition and fees at $976,900,000, second is state appropriations at

$281,000,000, third is all other revenues at 95,200,000, fourth is research facilitation passthrough

at 300,000, and lastly the fifth is revenue-based initiatives at 6,000,000 (Michigan State

University, n.d.). The largest portion of revenue that the university receives is the student tuition

and fees with state appropriations coming in second. The university also receives revenue from

the main aspects of its technical core including research and agriculture. The first major revenue

stream comes from MSU AgBioResearch and 2017-2018 budgeted revenues were $46,343,277

(Michigan State University 2017-2018 Budgets, n.d.). On the agriculture side through MSU’s

Extension Program revenues were budgeted to $48,672,538 but intercollegiate athletic revenues

were the highest at $127,680,449 (Michigan State University 2017-2018 Budgets, n.d.). This

large amount of revenue can be used as a strong argument for individuals who assume that

athletics is a part of the technical core. However, as we have discussed athletics is not a part of

the technical core but rather supports the core as a part of the task environment.

Financials are very important but to be honest, I did not focus too much on these aspects

during my time as an undergraduate student. However, I did spend a lot of my time within a

program that supported MSU’s technical core and was a part of the task environment. When I

began my time at MSU in the fall of 2011 I was a part of a program called the Broad Freshman

Program and was a member for all four of my undergraduate years. Since then, the program has

evolved and is now referred to as the Residential Business Community. This program was a
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pathway to channel students, as it was an affinity group specifically for students interested in

majors within the Eli Broad School of Business. The process of choosing a pathway began

mainly with the interest I had gained in high school and connecting those interests to majors or

programs at MSU. My mother was an employee at MSU during the time I attended and she had

heard about the Broad Freshman Program which was another layer to the channeling process.

The program was a specific track or pathway for students within the Eli Broad School of

Business.

Within the program there were several aspects to support students in their journey

from the input stage to the output stage. The first was two specific courses that students within

the Broad Freshman Program were required to take in the first and second semester of their

freshman year. These courses were called freshman seminars, which is not a new idea to the

higher education realm, but these seminars had major benefits. Since all of the students were

business majors the curriculum focused on how to create effective resumes, the perfect way to

shake a hand, best interview practices, proper interview attire, and many more. The second

semester seminar focused more on learning about the ins and outs of a company, what careers

were attached to what majors, solving surface level business problem through case studies, and

meeting and hearing directly from professionals in the field. All of the other thousands of

students within the Business School were not taking these courses or receiving this type of

information so far in advance. I remember talking with a few friends of mine that were not in the

residential program and they had no idea how to create a resume, how to solve a case study, or

how to properly prepare for an interview. How did they not know this? I had assumed that all the

other students just knew this information but that was not the case. The Broad Freshman
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Program provided me with a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness to achieve during my

time at MSU because of things like these seminars.

Getting involved was always a topic of discussion before entering college and after as

well. The Broad Freshman Program afforded me the opportunity to be heavily involved as a

member of the leadership council within the program. Looking back on my involvement in high

school I do not think I would have been as involved as I was if I hadn’t been a part of the

residential program. Throughout my time at MSU I held a volunteer co-chair position for two

years on the leadership council, a paid position as a peer leader, and a paid position as an

orientation leader. If I had not been a part of this smaller cohort of students, I most likely would

not have stepped into all of these positions or built on my skill set as much as I did. I was able to

create relationships with the program director, professionals in many fields, and other students.

These relationships supported me in the process of moving from an input to output by offering

me a work study position, potential work opportunities after graduation, and many people that

were there to help me through any struggle during my time at MSU. At a large public university

such as MSU a lot of students get lost or overwhelmed and do not have anyone to turn to for

advice. Many students will only go through the initial channeling process of choosing a major

but will stop there. This lack of direction and further channeling can prevent a student from

moving from the input stage to the output stage. A student in this situation may not have other

students around them who are in the same academic program or the same college either and this

could prevent a student from making the vital connections that could carry them throughout their

college career. Therefore, the task environment becomes inefficient and ineffective because a

student may take 6+ years to finish school or may never graduate which means that the input did

not become an output.

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The Eli Broad School of Business at MSU was one of the most difficult schools to get

into on the undergraduate level. Applying to get into the school required extensive preparation

and advising from faculty and staff. Not only did each student have to have specific prerequisites

completed for their chosen major but also the general business courses. To even be considered

for admittance into the school students needed a very high GPA as well as an in depth essay

stating why they have selected their major and what their plans were for after graduation. As a

student within the residential business community I had exposure to this process from the time I

started my freshman year at MSU. I had created several drafts of my essay to submit for the

application and each time was able to have faculty or staff within the school look it over for me

and offer suggestions. Having these connections through the residential program was essential to

my continuation within the Eli Broad School of Business. I had many friends that were not in the

residential program that were not aware of the application process or its competitive nature until

just before the application deadline. The lack of knowledge that these students had about the

application process creates an experience that is not efficient or effective and prevents students

from continuing on the path they originally set out on.

When looking back and reflecting upon my experience within the residential program I

realize how impactful an organization like this can be for a student. During both my time at MSU

and my time at Concordia I have heard too many stories of students transferring out, dropping

out, or extending their time to finish because of various phases within the task environment. A

student can easily get lost in any part of the task environment whether it has to do with

registration, residential life, financial aid, academic advising, or many other areas. Often times,

we do not see the larger impact that a certain part of the task environment can have as the student

will not inform the university of why they left or what went wrong. If we as higher education
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professionals strive to understand student desires I believe that the efficiency and effectiveness

can drastically increase.

In my own work I try to always focus only on the student and not on political issues or

other things going on within the institution. By focusing my attention solely on the student I can

create a strong relationship with them by understanding what their needs are and provide them

with the resources to fulfill those needs. I believe that this is at the very heart of the task

environment and is what can shape the student experience into the future. This is why the higher

education realm needs to work towards offering more programs for students of all types in order

to make their journey from an input to an output smooth and meaningful.

So what can we do to improve this? From my perspective I believe this is twofold on the

faculty/staff side and on the student side but both would benefit from enhanced engagement.

Ensuring that both employees and students feel connected, have purpose and autonomy, while

also growing and impacting others is essential to a task environment that is efficient and

effective. This can be done by establishing a common ground which can happen in various ways

throughout an institution depending upon the student and/or department. By establishing this

common ground both students and employees can work from diverse backgrounds towards a

shared goal in a way that ensures the institution continues to exist for its core technology.

Programs, organizations, departments, or others areas can found and continue the engagement by

creating an environment that connects students to resources while giving them the autonomy to

use the resources in the best way they see fit for themselves. Specific environments or programs

can also lay the foundation of purpose that can motivate a student to grow and evolve while

impacting the world around them. I am very curious as to how the task environment will

progress into the future of higher education and the creativity that will blossom to adapt to the
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ever-changing student body. Retention will begin to become more important than it ever has

been before and institutions will rely mainly upon their task environment to take this challenge

on.
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References

Youatt, J. P. (2017, October 26). Fall 2017 Enrollment Report. Retrieved July 29, 2018, from

https://opb.msu.edu/functions/institution/documents/FallEnrollment.pdf

Student Hiring Information. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2018, from

https://www.hr.msu.edu/ua/hiring/student-employees/index.html

Office of Planning and Budgets. (2018, June). MSU Data Digest. Retrieved July 29, 2018, from

https://opb.msu.edu/functions/institution/datadigest/documents/datadigest1.pdf

Michigan State University. (n.d.). General Fund Revenue and Expenditure Projections. Retrieved

July 29, 2018, from https://msu.edu/state-transparency-

reporting/Section245FY17_1e.html

Michigan State University 2017-2018 Budgets. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2018, from

https://msu.edu/state-transparency-reporting/assets/documents/2017-18Budgets.pdf