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Georgia Southern UniversityFirst Monitoring ReportSeptember 6 2006(1) Restatement of Comprehensive Standard, Recommendation Number, and the Recommendation as Articulated in the Visiting Committee Report Comprehensive Standard 3.4.1 Recommendation 5
(2) History of Institutional Response If More than a First Response (3) Current Request of the Commission (4) Georgia Southern’s Response The data collection included all academic, administrative, and educational support services. Initial data collection was submitted by October 2005, with review and feedback provided shortly thereafter by a University review team. Units were asked to refine their plans and resubmit full EBDMs by June 1, 2006. The Divisions of Business and Finance, University Advancement, and Student Affairs and Enrollment Management were given until July 15, 2006. All of the University’s EBDM plans are provided in the Appendix. Since the Division of Academic Affairs is the largest division on campus, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs initiated several additional activities between October 2005 and June 2006 to ensure that all units had a basic understanding of the EBDM process, kept on task, and were able to relate their individual unit’s EBDM to other ongoing campus initiatives. Following focus groups with students and faculty leaders, the academic deans finalized the “Desired Attributes of Graduates” in early January 2006. These outputs were used in a two day, off-campus workshop at Little Ocumulgee State Park. At this venue, deans, department chairs, and directors met in interactive sessions to discuss the common understanding of desired Georgia Southern University outputs and how EBDM should document achievement of these outputs. The Director of Strategic Research and Analysis worked closely with the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management in the development of that Division’s EBDM plans, providing training, guidance, and feedback as needed. Likewise, the Director of Institutional Effectiveness met with the Divisions of Business and Finance and University Advancement, providing training, guidance, and feedback. Table 3.4.1 documents the progress made in response to Recommendation 5. Review of the EBDMs indicate that not all of the units have the reached the desired level of understanding of the EBDM process. Within Academic Affairs, it is clear that some colleges are more capable of using assessment results to document improvements than are others. All units, however, have established student learning and/or programmatic outcomes and identified assessment measures. In several units, which did not exist before 2005, these assessment instruments still need to be developed. For example, the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health was newly established effective January 1, 2006. Therefore, implementation of the EBDM plans for the programs in this college are scheduled for 2006-07. Nonetheless, the University can document significant progress from the prior round of IEPs. Table 3.4.1A displays a sample of student learning and programmatic outcomes by program along with an explanation of how assessment results were used to improve student learning or program results. In addition, Table 3.4.1B contains a sample of the full EBDM plans, showing the outcome, relevancy to the strategic theme, assessment measure(s), benchmark(s), and how the results were used to improve student and/or program performance. Again, all EBDM plans are provided in the Appendix. Upcoming Year Throughout all units in the University, campus conversations are continuing based upon the evidence already collected. The Division of Academic Affairs held its annual Deans, Directors, and Department Chairs Workshop on August 10, 2006, where work continued on drafting an academic blueprint for the 2006-07 academic year. This blueprint highlights several targeted areas that the Division plans to purse this forthcoming year. These initiatives were identified, in part, from evidence collected in individual unit EBDM plans, and the EBDM process will be used to implement the academic blueprint once it is finalized. In the coming year, units are tasked with following through on the actions reported in their EBDM plans and providing a mid-year evaluation at the end of the fall semester and an end-of-year evaluation in the spring semester. These efforts may range from gathering data to analyzing data to actually documenting closure of the feedback loop based on the evidence gathered. For example, the EBDM plan for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences notes that data still needs to be collected, while the EBDM plan for Art—Graphic Design Concentration indicates that faculty need to develop assessment rubrics. In some cases, data have been gathered and analyzed, but the results showed that assessments instruments needed to be refined. Such is the case with the plan submitted for the Finance program in the College of Business Administration. Mathematical Sciences outlined an improvement plan based upon the evidence already collected. In this case, the department plans to establish a prerequisite check in the Banner Student Information System before the beginning of classes to remove unprepared students from courses. Currently, almost 20% of courses are comprised of students who do not meet the prerequisites. Results of this effort will form part of their mid-year evaluation report. By the end of the year, it is anticipated that many more units will be at the stage of documenting improvements based on the evidence collected. Attachments 1For a full description of the curriculum review process, please refer to http://sacs.georgiasouthern.edu/compliance/comprehensive/cs3-4-1.htm. |
