OFFICE OF THE PROVOST AND VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS Journal #4 March 21, 2006 Institutional Effectiveness Eileen B. Evans
Faculty Survey of Student Engagement 2006 For the first time, both WMU faculty colleagues and students will participate in national surveys of student engagement. Recently, a number of our undergraduate students participated in a national survey (see NSSE below) that asked them about their college experience. The results from the study will be used in a variety of ways, including assessment, institutional improvement, and discussion on teaching and learning initiatives. To gain information on the faculty perspective on these issues, 928 WMU faculty will be asked to participate in the 2006 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). FSSE is designed to measure faculty expectations for student engagement in educational practices that are known to be empirically linked with high levels of learning and development. Because faculty are key to discussions about student engagement; I encourage participation in the survey. FSSE will begin contacting faculty on March 21, 2006, with instructions on how to participate. WMU most recently participated in FSSE in 2004 and in NSSE in 2003. WMU will repeat its participation in both surveys in 2010.
National Survey of Student Engagement 2006 The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is underway on campus and at several hundred other colleges and universities across the country. While it’s easy to ignore surveys, this one is short (less than 15 minutes to complete via either the paper or web version) but has the potential to actually make a difference in the quality of undergraduate education here and elsewhere because it asks the kinds of questions that matter to student learning and institutional effectiveness: How much reading and writing is required? How often do students interact with other students who are from different backgrounds and cultures? How good is the academic advising? How many students work with faculty members on research and other activities? WMU is interested in knowing how and where students spend their time, the nature and quality of their interactions with faculty members and peers, and what they have gained from their classes and other aspects of their college experience. Faculty, staff, and administrators can use the answers to these questions to decide where to improve teaching and learning and other aspects of campus life. A broad cross-section of freshmen and seniors, totaling 4,456 students, were randomly selected to participate.
In early February students received invitations to participate, and reminder e-mails in early March. Students receiving the paper mailing can expect survey letters to arrive about April 7, and those not receiving paper surveys will see another e-mail reminder then, too. The final email reminder is set to arrive on April 18, as the semester is drawing to a close. The NSSE project is co-sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Pew Forum on Undergraduate Learning. It’s administered by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University and supported in part by a grant from Lumina Foundation for Education. Additional information about The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is available on the web (http://www.iub.edu/~nsse/).
WMU Sends Ten to NCSU Undergraduate Assessment Symposium—and Offers Campus an Opportunity to Preview the Presentations on Wednesday, March 29 Patrick Benton, aviation and interim University Assessment Steering Committee chair, will lead a delegation of WMU faculty and staff making presentations at the North Carolina State University Undergraduate Assessment Symposium on April 6-8. To share the results of research on assessment of student learning outcomes and ongoing program improvement across campus, and to recognize the work of the presenters, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness will host the five presentations to the WMU community on Wednesday, March 29, from 2 to 5 p.m., in Bernhard Center room 204. The afternoon’s program comprises: • • Maira Bundza, University Libraries, Assessing a Training Program for Student Employees in the Library Susan Brodasky, Institutional Effectiveness, and Katharine Cummings, College of Education, 30,000 Students, 269 Programs, and One Tool for Managing Assessment: Using Technology to Support and Guide the Process Deveta Gardner, Career and Student Employment Services, Linda Ickes, Career and Student Employment Services, and Suzanne Nagel-Bennett, Division of Student Affairs, How to Strategically Plan for Learning-Oriented Student Services and Programs, and Then Measure What You Value Instead of Valuing What You Measure! Paul Vellom, Teaching Learning and Leadership, Big Rocks, Little Rocks and Sand: Aligning University Coursework with State Standards in a Large Teacher Preparation Program Karen Bondarchuk, School of Art, and Joyce Kubiski, School of Art, Visual Art Assessment: The Challenges of Portfolio Assessment with Changing Technology
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The preview is open to the public and all are welcome.
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2006 University Assessment Grant Competition—Deadline April 15 As many as six grants of up to $5,000 are available through an annual internal competition to support research on the formal assessment of student learning outcomes and program quality, including programs at branch campuses. Assessment should be focused on determining how well students in a program are progressing toward the goals or standards for the program. Academic departments, academic support units, interdisciplinary units, and departments and programs within the Division of Student Affairs are eligible to apply. Funding preference will be for projects involving different departments each year. The application guidelines and budget form are available at www.wmich.edu/poapa/assessment/faculty%20grant%20progrm. For questions about the application process, eligibility, or project suitability, please contact me at eileen.evans@wmich.edu. Three projects were funded for 2005-2006: • Lisa Whittaker, aviation, Gender Differences in the Aviation Flight Science Program: A Study of Performance • • Evelyn Winfield and Elaine Phillips, university counseling and testing center, UCTC Computer Screener: Assessing Needs of Diverse Students Jody Brylinsky, health, physical education and recreation, Assessing Cultural Competence in HPER: What Do We Say We Do?
PowerPoint slides of the 2005-2006 fellows’ public presentations to the campus community are available at www.wmich.edu/poapa/assessment/faculty%20grant%20progrm.
Higher Learning Commission Workshop: Assessment as Core Strategy Bassam Harik, Arts and Sciences, and Meg Dupuis, English, recently led a six-person University team attending the Higher Learning Commission’s workshop on using assessment as a core strategy. Team members representing WMU were Keith Hearit, Lee Honors College; Lisa Paulius, physics; Gil Sinclair, aviation; and Brian Wilson, comparative religion. The focus of the HLC is on the outcomes of assessment, not just the data, but on student learning and how assessment brings changes to curricula. All assessment should be aligned with the University’s mission statement. HLC is looking for a strong commitment from the University leadership for assessment, especially in terms of budgeting. Assessment should be carried out at all levels of the University, not just the academic units, with a goal toward enhancing student learning. HLC encouraged changing the culture on campus, providing a process of inquiry, looking for ways to assess and improve. A strong emphasis is placed on faculty involvement, and faculty are encouraged to engage in campuswide conversations about student learning. Assessment information needs to flow in both directions in order to close the feedback loop, thus initializing change in accordance to the data. It is important for the units doing assessment to hear back from administrators about their assessment outcomes. HLC’s single largest cause of focused visits is failure to close the feedback loop. HLC stressed that sites don’t need to assess
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everything at once; it is better to focus on one area at a time. The workshop team focused on assessment of General Education and anticipates initiating a pilot study for assessing baccalaureate writing, followed by a full assessment of writing. Assessment results will be shared with the faculty senate, assessment committees, and policy makers in order to provide the feedback loop.
Cultivating Campus Cultures that Value Success—Teleconference on Thursday, March 30 For two hours (1-3 p.m.) the campus will have an opportunity to hear from three national experts on the relationship between an institution’s culture and the success of its first-year students. George Kuh (also of NSSE and FSEE fame), John Gardner (the father of the first-year program movement), and Catherine Andersen (faculty member and director of Gallaudet’s first-year experience)—each of whom has successfully influenced campus culture—will sort out what works and what doesn’t. Who should attend? Let’s just say that if you’ve been in a conversation regarding student recruitment, enrollment, or retention over the past two years, this one’s for you. To register, or for additional information, call the First-Year Experience office at 7-2306. Location will be given at the time of registration. The Division of Student Affairs, the Office of First-Year Experience, and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness are co-sponsoring the teleconference.
Writing a Competitive Sabbatical Proposal Thinking about submitting a sabbatical proposal for 2007-2008? What distinguishes proposals of the highest merit? What advice can writers of those proposals offer? The Office of the Provost is hosting an event for colleagues to glean insights from four faculty colleagues whose 2006-2007 proposals were identified as being of high merit. The quality of their proposals resulted in provost’s sabbatical leave funding in the amount of $15,000 to each of their departments. In making these decisions, which were based on the merit of the projects, major consideration was given to projects of broad research activity or potential while also collectively reflecting a diverse spread of scholarship and creative activity. No distinction was made between academic year and semester leave applications. Please join your colleagues on Tuesday, April 18, 2006, from 3 to 5 p.m., in the Fetzer Center small auditorium. For additional information contact the Office of Institutional Effectiveness at 7-0399. Presenters and their projects are: • Igor Fedotov, School of Music, will conduct research to rediscover and revive viola music by twentieth-century Soviet composers. Fedotov will collect rare biographical and historical documents in Russia and produce compact disc recordings. He has been invited
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to give lectures on orchestral excerpts at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Moscow State Institute of Music. • Carla Koretsky, geosciences, will investigate trace metal and nutrient recycling and measurement in wetland sediments at Sapelo Island, Georgia, and in the Scheldt estuary in the Netherlands, collaborating with a colleague at Utrecht University. Richard Long, blindness and low vision studies, will write a grant application and plan a program of research pertaining to community movement patterns of children and youth with blindness and low vision. Collaboration will be with colleagues in Haiti and at Charles University in the Czech Republic. Gregory Veeck, geography, will conduct a research project assessing grassland use and productivity in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China using GPS and remote imaging.
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ICES Update At the March 15, 2006 Academic Forum, Sue Brodasky and Michele McLaughlin announced that the ICES Steering Committee recently approved a pilot program to introduce pre-printed ICES red order forms that will run during Summer I and Summer II semesters. The ICES Campus Coordinator, Sue Brodasky, is currently working on scheduling a series of training sessions for departmental staff regarding processing changes and the pilot program. Updates on the ICES system may be found at www.wmich.edu/poapa/ICES/index.
Building 126 and Available Space for WMU Research To foster the synergy of academic and private sector research, and to contribute to the community’s economic development, the WMU Foundation is in the process of buying Pfizer’s Building 126 in downtown Kalamazoo as a capital investment. A select committee, charged by the provost and chaired by the vice provost for institutional effectiveness, will issue its report by June 1 to President Bailey, Provost Delene, and Vice President Beam on three charges: (a) to determine and recommend the criteria, protocol, and timing for the assignment of WMU faculty engaged in funded research to Bldg. 126, (b) to recommend changes in the current University internal F&A fund distribution for WMU faculty located in Building 126 to provide as much fiscal support to the facility from the WMU researchers’ funded research as is possible, and (c) to determine and recommend the specific interior lab location for WMU faculty within Bldg. 126 that is the most cost-effective and most supportive of the expected research, in direct consultation with the vice president for research and WMU physical plant staff. The committee will present its draft recommendations and request comments at several meetings in mid-April: Deans’ Council – Tuesday, April 11, 2006
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Academic Forum – Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Research Policy Council – Thursday, April 13, 2006 Vice President Beam’s staff meeting – Thursday, April 20, 2006 Committee members are: • • • • • • • • • • Eileen Evans, Office of Institutional Effectiveness Said Abubakr, Paper Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Imaging Osama Abudayyeh, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Yvonne “Evie” Asken, Campus Planning David Cowan, Biological Sciences Alexander Enyedi, College of Arts and Sciences Gregory Flamme, Speech Pathology and Audiology Leonard Ginsberg, Office of Vice President for Research Robert Miller, Community Outreach Jan Van Der Kley, Business and Finance
To follow the committee’s progress, go to www.wmich.edu/provost/Building126/index for summary notes and the committee charge. The committee welcomes suggestions pertinent to the charges. E-mail eileen.evans@wmich.edu to contribute your ideas and observations to the group.
NCA Higher Learning Commission Focused Visit Outcome The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association conducted its WMU mandated focused visit on November 7-8. The visit went exceptionally well. During the exit interview, the team announced it would recommend to the HLC “no further commission action required until the next comprehensive visit in 2011.” The team’s report and the materials that WMU provided the team have been sent to a readers’ panel (two readers from different universities and members of the Accreditation Review Council). The panel is now reviewing the recommendations, evaluating the congruence between the team report, the team’s recommendation, and the University’s response. WMU will be notified of the panel’s recommendation, and their report then will be considered by the Institutional Actions Council on April 24, and validated by the HLC Board of Trustees.
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A heartfelt thank you to the faculty members whose work since 2001 has increased engagement in a campuswide culture of assessment and in planning at the department, college, division, and institution levels. Creating the Future • 2.4 people every second are now being added to our global population. • 87 percent of young people, ages 10-19, live in the developing world. • Nigeria and Pakistan are projected to contribute the most to global population growth. • About 2 billion people live in countries that are in danger of collapse. • By 2015, 80 percent of people currently entered into the workforce will remain. Yet 80 percent of current technology will be replaced with new technology to which existing workers must adapt. • Ten to 15 years from now, annual industrial production in nanotech sectors is expected to exceed $1 trillion, which would require 2 million nanotech workers. These thought-provoking nuggets, and a wealth of materials supplied to attendees, supported Erik Peterson’s “Seven Revolution” virtual seminar offered to the WMU campus on March 7. Senior VP at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Peterson heads an initiative to forecast key global trends out to the year 2025. According to Peterson, the seven revolutions will occur in the areas of population; strategic resource management; technological innovation and diffusion; the flow of information and knowledge; global economic integration; the nature and mode of conflict; and the challenge of governance. For additional information on the revolutions and insights on the importance of our ability to transform for the future, you may want to speak with some of the seminar attendees, who include deans Nick Andreadis, Tim Greene, Margaret Merrion, and Gary Wegenke, or go to www.csis.org.
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