Office of Academic Affairs

Minutes of Academic Affairs Council Planning Meeting - August 14-15, 1995
Arrowhead Lodge, Canadian, Oklahoma

Members Absent: Nancy Thomason

Others Present: Holly Sewell

Recorder: Sue Milner

The meeting was called to order at 1:15 p.m. by Dr. Anderson. Minutes from the previous meeting held on July 18, 1995, were approved as distributed.

I. OPENING COMMENTS/OVERVIEW - DR. ANDERSON

Faculty Matters:

Dr. Shirley Talley was introduced to the Council. She will serve in 1995-96 as Administrative Intern in the Office of Academic Affairs. Faculty positions have been filled in the following schools/divisions:

• School of Business: Accounting, Curtis Howell
  Business Administration, Vance Lesseig, Bill Walden
  
• School of Mathematics and Sciences:
  Chemistry - Charles Crittell, John White
  Biology - Michael Bay, Larry Choate
  Family and Consumer Sciences - Susan Miller
  Mathematics - Anne Fine
  
• Division of Social Sciences:
  Human Resources - Wayne McElhannon, Steve Turner
• Arts and Letters Division:
  English - Ginger Brackett, Hugh Tribbey
  
• School of Education and Psychology:
  Psychology - Karen Longest
  

Campus Renovation and Moves:
• Second floor of Science Hall has been renovated.
• Mathematics department moved to Science Hall.
• New coils in air conditioning in Science Hall.
• Third floor of Science Hall will be unused except for the dance studio late in the fall.
• Applied Science Building has been vacated.
• Office/Technology department moved to the second floor of Administration Building.
• Military Science moved to basement of Education Building
• COP program will be housed in the basement of the Education Building.
• Hearing Impaired program is located in the North Lounge of the Student Union Building and will be moved to the Education Building later in the year.
• The student newspaper, The Journal, will be moved from Fentem Hall to the third floor of the Student Union Building under the management of an advisor and students.
• The School Nurse is currently in Knight Hall, Suite 100, south of the Regents Room.
• Dr. Talley will maintain an office in 256 Administration.
• The swimming pool opens Monday, August 21.

1995-96 Budget:
• The Equipment and Institutional Technology budgets have been distributed to schools/divisions. A stipend will be paid in November for full-time faculty and staff. Faculty and professional staff will receive $1,000 and non-professional staff will receive $650. No new faculty or staff will receive the stipend. The stipend is awarded in lieu of a raise and for the work performed in 1994-95.

Academic Calendar:
• Academic Calendars were distributed for the 1995-96 academic year beginning August through June. The months of July and August will be added once the academic calendar for 1996-97 is submitted to the Regents in January. A committee will be named to develop and recommend an academic calendar for 1996-97.

Annual Report, 1994-95:
• Dr. Anderson summarized the 1994-95 Annual Report for areas under the direction of the Office of Academic Affairs. Highlights included Accreditation Studies and Program Review. He discussed student credit hour production, compared the undergraduate and graduate SCH's for fall 1990 and fall 1994. Also discussed were undergraduate and graduate degrees granted for the same years and program major counts.

Five Major Issues Identified for 1995-96:
• General Education revision must be completed fall 1995.
• Strategic Plan must be implemented.
• Improve student retention and graduate rates.
• Consider North Central's recommendation for academic reorganization.
• Survive the construction on campus.

A document listing "Action Steps/Tasks for Academic Affairs for 1995-96" was distributed. Eleven items were listed as follows:

1. Develop and initiate a comprehensive student retention program.
2. Develop and initiate a long-term effort to improve the institution's graduate rates.
3. Complete the necessary steps to implement the revised general education curriculum in fall 1996.
4. Initiate and/or improve institutional policies and procedures to improve course articulation with Oklahoma public colleges and universities.
5. Establish formal 2 + 2 articulation agreements in selected degree programs with Connors State College, Eastern Oklahoma State College, Murray State College, Rose State College, and Seminole Junior College.
6. Develop the institutional strategic planning process to integrate department, school/division, and institutional academic plans into institutional preparation for next North Central Association reaccreditation report.
7. Establish a Teaching, Learning and Technology (TLT) Round Table.
8. Streamline program (major) assessment plans and continue to integrate assessment into program reviews.
9. Develop a strategy to respond to the sift from federal external funding to foundation, state and local external funding.
10. Review institutional professional development practices and funding.
11. Implement OneNet, if established at the State level.

Ideas for student retention were discussed at random. Dr. Anderson read Dr. Carl Rutledge's plan for his classes to help in student retention. Other suggestions followed.

1. Set up team groups of ten beginning freshmen, next year ten more. The faculty member stays with the groups through all years until graduation. Groups and advisor work together and meet occasionally.
2. Give a cash bonus to the advisor for each of his/her students who graduates. Could promote more frequent contact between student and advisor.
3. Distribute Title III advising techniques to all faculty. Provide a quick reference sheet.
4. Research shows if students are involved in campus activities, they are more likely to stay. Might be a pilot project.
5. Set up a cohort system. Place PLC students in groups for seminars; the smaller, the better.
6. Give one hour credit for PLC class. Have activities outside of class, i.e. hamburger fry for the PLC group. Use this group as model for the next year's PLC group.
7. A booklet listing possible student problems, with referral numbers, should be provided for faculty members who are not comfortable dealing with personal problems.
8. Set up a retention team of faculty members who volunteer.
9. Have a system where beginning freshmen come a week before school starts and invite parents to come. The contact is the single most important part of retention.
10. One reason for students dropping out is that work interferes with school. Teach students how to tell their employers they have a class.
11. There continues to be a need for a Counseling Center.

Summer Advisement and Enrollment:

Dr. Anderson called for suggestions for improving summer enrollment.

1. Assign faculty who are really interested in advising and consider granting release time or some other incentive.
2. Advising is part of summer faculty's contract. Set up a schedule for advising in Center and name a captain
3. for the Center and circulate the schedule among the school/division faculty.
4. It is a major problem for beginning freshmen to find their actual advisor during summer. Channel all beginning freshmen through an advising center.
5. List in catalog a first and second year sequence of courses to take in each program. Courses should be taken in succession.
6. Some courses are offered every third semester. The catalog should show how often the course is offered.
7. Advisor should require the student to make a four-year plan of study.
8. Advisor and student should meet at least a week before each enrollment period.
9. Develop a handbook for faculty advisement.
10. Continue professional development updates on advising process.

IV. ASSESSMENT UPDATE--DR. JACKSON

Dr. Jackson discussed data gathered on the Fall 1994 Freshman Class. The data showed student's grade performance for selected courses in relation to the student's entrance tests, CPT and ACT scores, for that area.

V. TEACHER EDUCATION REDESIGN UPDATE--DR. MOORE

Everyone will have input on Teacher Education Redesign. A new commission has been formed that includes Three persons from higher education institutions. A reception is planned September 12 to meet Floyd Coppage, the Secretary of Education. He would like to meet as many faculty as possible.

The time line is to complete the program and approve the policy next year in fall 1996. An institutional plan must be written and submitted to the Regents by January 1, 1997. The plan will be developed to include the assessment implemented and program review.

VI. STRATEGIC PLANNING UPDATE--OSBORNE

Dr. Osborne distributed a school/division/unit strategic planning model. The members of North Central Association's last accreditation visit recommended that ECU have a plan in place. There are existing reports available on campus that should tie together to make a plan of the university's goals and objectives. These reports should be reviewed to see how they relate to department and division plans. He asked that the planning model information be used in the schools/divisions.

The following procedure may be followed to utilize the planning model:

1. Compare assumptions to goals and objectives.
2. Look at short and long-range objectives that tie back to your school/division or department.
3. Identify 3-5 priorities of focus for your faculty and staff.
4. In next few months prepare skeleton plan.
5. Once identified, work on short-term goals.
6. Consider where the school/division or department wants to be in five years.
7. Start to quantify. What is important in your program?
8. Once goals are established, report a year later what was accomplished and what was not accomplished.

The second session was called to order at 8:30 a.m. by Dr. Anderson. The planning meeting resumed as follows.

VII. OTHER ISSUES RELATED TO START-UP OF FALL SEMESTER--DR. ANDERSON

Course Syllabi:
• The revised course syllabi format is completed and ready to be implemented. A method for implementing must be decided. This fall, if faculty can use this format they should do so. If they want to use the old format this fall, they may. Everyone must include the ADA statement and the Writing Across the Curriculum statement (items 6 and 7). Deans/division chairs should work with faculty to generate the syllabi for the new general education curriculum. The new syllabi format must be used for general education courses or the course will be cut out. The new format is not significantly different than the old format in the Faculty Handbook. The revised general education curriculum will require a lot of changes in programs. A tremendous amount of work is to be done.

Summer FTE Allotment:
• A table of summer FTE allotment for years 1990 through 1995 was distributed. Dr. Anderson discussed the 1995 allotment, the projected, and the actual FTE required by calculating student credit hours.

New Faculty:
• Dr. Anderson discussed the schedule for new faculty for their orientation and the general faculty meeting.

New Policy for Transcripts and Drop/Add:
• A new policy will allow students to receive up to five official or unofficial transcripts on demand. They may drop and add without the fee of $5.00 per transaction. An administrative fee of $7.50 will be assessed each student every semester for this service. All past ECU students may also receive transcripts without costs.
• Students who add classes must pay the difference in tuition, if any, within 24 hours or the drop/add will revert to the previous class schedule. Total withdrawal from school is still under the old refund policy, depending on days into the semester.

Report of 1991 North Central Visit:

Dr. Anderson distributed suggestions made by the evaluation team of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, an assessed institutional progress to the present time.

1. TIS: A tremendous amount of work is being done in this area and will result in a positive institutional response to this question.
2. Diversity: A good job has been done in recruiting minority students. Faculty recruitment has been a struggle.
3. Salary Levels: We are on a par with our peer group.
4. Communication Faculty/Administration: Work continues on this and improvements are evident.
5. Combine Personnel and Payroll offices: Not applicable.
6. Career Placement Services for Non Education: Not applicable.
7. Services for Disabled Students: Considerable effort has been devoted to bringing the campus up to ADA standards.
8. Revise Faculty and Student Handbooks: This is being done.
9. Professional Development: This is a priority consideration for Academic Affairs.
10. Revise General Education Philosophy Statement: This has been accomplished.
11. Examine Curriculum: This is an ongoing task.
12. Foundation Role of Support: The Foundation has just come through a fund raising project and was successful in raising more than their target goal.

1. Implement an Assessment Plan which provides reliable and systematic data collection and critical review: We are in excellent shape on this.
2. Implement Strategic Plan paired with centralized institutional research efforts for collection and utilization of data: Working on it.
3. Review and improve faculty governance processes relative to opportunities for input into decision making aspects of the campus: Continuing discussion, Faculty Senate proposal, etc.
4. Acquisition and integration of computer technology into instructional program: A lot has been done. Will provide faculty with computers and software and allow faculty to decide how they will use it as an instructional tool.
5. Graduate faculty appointments: This has been addressed through the development of Graduate School By-Laws.
6. Academic organization of departments, schools and divisions to reflect common practice for effective and efficient administration: More remains to be done.
7. New academic programs: No new programs proposed.
8. Teaching Load of Chairs consistent with administrative responsibilities: Must look at this in the spring.
9. Physical Plant deferred maintenance needs: There is a lot of progress.
10. Library facility and holdings minimally adequate: A new library is being built.
11. Instructional facilities and equipment are crowded and outdated: The campus master plan calls for adequate space. Deteriorating buildings are being fixed and academic programs are being relocated.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:00 noon.

Duane C. Anderson
Vice President, Academic Affairs