Improving Board Engagement with Educational Quality

Transcription

1 Improving Board Engagement with Educational Quality Institutional Case Report Templates As part of this AGB project, we will be compiling a set of case reports based on the experiences of the participants. These case reports will help other institutions and boards to learn from your experiences and progress. Near the end of the project, we will ask you for materials and insights that will form the basis of the case reports. What follows is a draft outline of anticipated content and sources. Who you are Briefly describe the institution, its mission and its board including composition and committee structure with particular attention to its committees and work focusing on student learning outcomes. Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) MSU Denver s Mission is statutorily defined: MSU Denver is a comprehensive, baccalaureate- and master s-degree granting urban university that offers arts and sciences, professional and business courses and programs to a diverse student population in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Excellence in teaching and learning is MSU Denver's primary objective. MSU Denver s mission is to provide a high-quality, accessible, enriching education that prepares students for successful careers, post-graduate education and lifelong learning in a multicultural, global and technological society. To fulfill its mission, MSU Denver s diverse university community engages the community at large in scholarly inquiry, creative activity and the application of knowledge. As a comprehensive, regional, public, urban university, MSU Denver serves nearly 23,000 students (headcount). Of these, 93% are from the metro Denver area. The average age of our students is 26; 36% of our students are Pell eligible; 33% of undergraduate Coloradans who are students of color attended MSU Denver in We aspire to achieve Hispanic Serving Institution status by Our tuition and fees for 16 credit hours in was $2,670; and funding from the state is less than $2,000 per FTES. Board of Trustees MSU Denver s Board of Trustees (BoT) has nine (9) gubernatorial appointees, who are voting members. It also has three (3) honorary members, who are non-voting: an Alumni Trustee, a Student Trustee, and a Faculty Trustee, each of whom is elected by the relevant constituency. In addition to the full Board, the BoT currently has three (3) committees: the Academic and Student Affairs (ASA) Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Governance Committee. The ASA Committee focuses primarily on student learning outcomes, curriculum, and other educational quality issues. At its MSU Denver Institutional Case Report Page 1 of 5

2 most recent retreat (September 19-20, 2013), the BoT decided that it wished to dedicate minutes at each Full Board meeting to Educational Quality and other Higher Education Issues in the future. Your starting point regarding board oversight of student learning (Summer 2012) Please describe your approach to board oversight of educational quality at the beginning of the project (Summer 2012) Board-level student learning metrics: The most frequently addressed student learning metrics in 2012 were retention and graduation rates of our students in the aggregate, and disaggregated by IPEDS-defined first year students and transfer students; the benchmarks were second year retention rates and six year graduation rates. We have also shared information related to the ratio between full time (tenure-line and non-tenure-line) and part-time faculty with an aspirational goal of 60:40; the number of state-funded FTES taught by faculty type. Finally, we have shared our progress toward achieving Hispanic Serving Institution Status based on FTES. Institutional assessment processes: We shared extensive documents related to our assessment processes of academic programs in our report to AGB in June. We have not done as well in assessing our non-academic programs, and have initiated a process for doing that this year. Ways and frequency in which the board and faculty interact (if they interact): For a relatively large institution of higher education, the faculty have had an unusual opportunity for frequent interaction with the BoT. A Faculty Trustee is a member of BoT; regular reports to the Full Board are on the Agenda from the President of the Faculty Senate and the President of the Council of Chairs. In addition, faculty may attend Committee and Full Trustees meetings. Until this year, faculty mostly attended Full BoT meetings, particularly when topics of interest to them would be announced, e.g., those faculty earning tenure (April meetings). Trustee processes for the oversight of educational quality: Trustee processes for educational quality oversight were and are significant (as described in the June 2013 report); they focused on academic program review and accreditation summaries in addition to a one-year follow-up addressing how the department and the campus had responded to issues or concerns raised by those reports. Nevertheless, deep discussions regarding these evaluations were limited to the Academic and Student Affairs Committee meetings, which Department Chairs and faculty from the affected Departments typically attended; subsequent reports to the Full BoT by the Committee Chair were generally fairly short. What you are currently doing (Fall 2013) Please describe your approach to board oversight of educational quality at the conclusion of the project (Fall 2013) Trustee-level student learning metrics: These are still being refined based on what we have done and what we can do; we are also learning from others and best practices regarding what other, similar IHEs are doing. The Board is now fully-focused on this effort, which should help us move forward more effectively and quickly now. Institutional assessment processes: As noted above, institutional assessment processes associated with academic program review or accreditation are already quite impressive. We are currently engaged in discussions about what information the Trustees and its Committees really need to see; we may be providing too much detailed information in some cases and not enough in others. We have initiated processes for reviewing and evaluating the work of non-academic programs, e.g., co- and extra-curricular programs intentionally designed to support and enhance educational quality. We plan to use processes similar to those that have been so successful with MSU Denver Institutional Case Report Page 2 of 5

3 academic program review; we will align these reviews to appropriate standards as defined by relevant professional associations or the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS). Ways and frequency in which the board and faculty interact (if they interact): This is still TBD as we have only had the Trustee Retreat so far this fall, and our first Committee and Full BoT meetings will be December 5-6, However, we will continue our new (as of the Academic Year ) practice of educating the Trustee s ASA Committee more deeply about various practices we use to achieve high quality education. This will include inviting many faculty participants. In addition, we have intentionally calendared BoT Committee and Full Board meetings so that they no longer conflict with the Faculty Senate meetings; this should facilitate greater participation by faculty. We are also seeking ways to engage Trustees and faculty in more settings beyond the official meetings; these ideas are still in discussion and are TBD. BoT processes for the oversight of educational quality: 1. Every meeting will have a one-page Dashboard of Educational Quality metrics on the front of Trustee Board Books. 2. Every Full-BoT meeting will devote minutes to a focused discussion on some aspect of educational quality or higher education issue. 3. Membership of the various BoT Committees will intentionally rotate so that all Trustees can be educated to all aspects of campus operations, including educational quality. How you got there The steps you took to increased board engagement with student learning outcomes assessment and educational quality and with what effect. After the AGB meeting last fall (2012), we initiated discussions with the Chair of the Trustee s Academic and Student Affairs Committee about how we might do a better job of educating the Trustee about the work faculty and staff do to achieve educational quality. At the BoT Retreat this fall (2013), we dedicated an entire morning to a discussion of Trustee oversight of educational quality. The discussion was based on a 20-page report (+ ~70 pages of detailed appendices) compiled by the Academic and Student Affairs Senior Leadership Team, with the help of the Office of Institutional Research. The report focused on goals, strategies, and measures of success that the ASA team had identified during the campus s Strategic Planning process and articulated in its Strategic Plan. The report also included a copy of the Performance Contract MSU Denver has signed with the Colorado Commission on Higher Education pledging to achieve several goals related to increasing retention and graduation rates, serving underserved students, and financial stewardship. We also used the draft Dashboard and Scorecard that the institution has been working on for quite some time, but has not been finalized. This discussion resulted in a realization that we need to finalize the Dashboard/Scorecard indicators we want to use and to build consistent reports based on those metrics over time. The Trustees were very clear that they wanted to see a one-page Dashboard on the front of their Board Books at the beginning of every meeting. MSU Denver Institutional Case Report Page 3 of 5

4 Lessons from experience Please share the most salient lessons from your experience about how to further board oversight of educational quality. What two or three things most facilitated your progress? What advice would you offer to others based on your experience? o The Trustee, who chairs our Academic and Student Affairs Committee, was (and is) very open to providing opportunities for faculty and students to demonstrate their efforts and successes at offering high quality education. Shortly after we returned from the 2012 fall AGB meeting, we met and devised a plan to set aside time for key presentations regarding how we are assuring educational quality on campus. Those presentations involved many faculty and some students: we explained how we engage in academic program review, with handouts and presentations from faculty involved as Peer Reviewers and as faculty/departments engaged in program review we focused on educating the ASA Committee on how Student Learning Outcomes, in particular, are reviewed and assessed by departmental faculty and Peer Reviewers we provided an overview of online learning at MSU Denver we presented a DRAFT University Outcomes proposal. This was a faculty led project inspired by a request from the Trustees at their 2012 Retreat asking what the characteristics are of an MSU Denver Graduate. This effort is still in process of being developed and refined. Each presentation was well-received and the Trustees then reported briefly to the whole BoT what had been presented at the Committee. The year was highlighted by a presentation to the Full BoT by the Students (with their faculty mentor nearby) who had won awards at the Undergraduate Research Fair. o The BoT Chair also made clear that AY was going to be the year of going back to the basics, e.g., we are about educating students, how do we know we are doing that well. This theme is going to help our efforts in continuing to engage the Trustees effectively in their educational quality oversight roles. o Obviously, having advocates on the BoT is immensely helpful to making this a priority of the Trustees. Though it is not always easy to do, taking the time to build a relationship with key Trustees can be imperative to the success of such an effort. What two or three things slowed progress? What lessons do you draw regarding pitfalls and sticky points? What advice would you offer to others based on your experience? o We have had significant issues related to deciding what the appropriate educational quality metrics should be. We have been working on a Dashboard/Scorecard for three years and still have no final product. Not sure of the reasons for this, but I believe we now have the message from the Board and the Leadership team in place to make sure we get this done in a timely fashion now. o The most important piece of advice on this score would be to learn from what similar institutions of higher education have done and are doing to build a Dashboard/Scoreboard and don t try to re-create the wheel.. MSU Denver Institutional Case Report Page 4 of 5

5 For further information contact: Name: Vicki L. Golich, Ph.D. Title: Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Phone number: Address: 890 Auraria Parkway, Denver, CO OR Campus Box 48, P.O. Box , Denver, CO Assistant s Name: Ann Sanders Assistant s contact information: OR asande15@msudenver.edu MSU Denver Institutional Case Report Page 5 of 5