School of Business and Social Sciences Strategic Plan, 2012 2017 Shepherd University

School of Business and Social Sciences Strategic Plan, 2012 2017 Shepherd University Endorsed by the School faculty on January 30, 2012. Strategic Planning Committee* Gordon DeMeritt, Ann Legreid, Mark Stern, Richie Stevens, Chip Zimmer Mission Statement: School of Business and Social Sciences A diverse community of learners who critically reflect upon the individual, the individual in community, and the communities that comprise the world, and who convert theory into practice as engaged citizens and leaders. The BASS mission statement echoes the mission statement of Shepherd University. As such, we are engaged citizens and leaders working to build a better world. Mission Statement: Shepherd University Shepherd University, a West Virginia public liberal arts university, is a diverse community of learners and a gateway to the world of opportunities and ideas. We are the regional center for academic, cultural, and economic opportunity. Our mission of service succeeds because we are dedicated to our core values: learning, engagement, integrity, accessibility, and community. Core Values Committed to excellence, Shepherd University embraces the following five core values: Learning Shepherd University creates a community of learners who integrate teaching, scholarship, and learning into their lives. Engagement Shepherd University fosters environments in which students, faculty, staff, and members of the community engage with each other to form mutually beneficial relationships. We believe that meaningful engagement, with ideas and with people, promotes deep learning and nurtures critical thought. Integrity Shepherd University strives for an environment of honesty and fairness in its actions. University officials seek input from students, faculty, and staff and make informal and objective decisions. We expect all members of the community to act in accordance with this value. 1

Accessibility Shepherd University provides services to all qualified students. Our staff and faculty are available to students and are committed to respecting and meeting individual needs. University governance and budgeting structures reflect our commitment to transparent processes and public access to information. Community Shepherd University comprises a community that includes students, faculty, staff, alumni, and involved citizens. We meet the needs of this community through assessment, development, and implementation of innovative programs and initiatives. We strive to create a safe environment based on mutual respect and acceptance of differences. SWOT Analysis: School of Business and Social Sciences Introduction The School of Business and Social Sciences (BASS) sees as its primary mission the engagement of faculty and students in teaching and learning. Consistent with Shepherd University s core value, BASS departments foster environments in which students, faculty, staff, and members of the community engage with each other to form mutually beneficial relationships. We believe that meaningful engagement, with ideas and with people, promotes deep learning and nurtures critical thought. (Shepherd University Strategic Plan, 2009-2013). Engagement in lifelong learning for both students and faculty is a critical element in our continuing success. The School of Business and Social Sciences is comprised of seven departments housing eleven disciplines that collectively offer eight majors, numerous minors and concentrations, and two graduate programs. The departments are Accounting, Business Administration and Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS), Economics and Finance, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Geography (including Anthropology and Criminology), and Social Work. The School houses two graduate programs, i.e. Business Administration and College Student Development and Administration. The School coordinates administrative tasks, disseminates information, supports student and faculty success, promotes community connections, and works in concert with the university s mission and core values of learning, engagement, integrity, accessibility, and community. The Department Chairs, Dean, Administrative Associate, Senior Secretary, and Social Work secretary handle the bulk of the administrative work of the School. A Child Welfare Trainer is funded by a Title IV-E grant and works closely with the faculty and staff in the Department of Social Work. This multi-million dollar grant has served a 15 county region over nearly 20 years in training foster and adoptive parents as well as child welfare workers. 2

Thirty-six full-time faculty comprise the residential teaching staff; another thirty-plus faculty are generally part-time each semester. Approximately one-third of the full-time faculty are at the Assistant Professor level and do not have tenure. The faculty represents great breadth in background and academic pedigree and about 85% of them have a terminal degree. Advisory councils and boards offer valuable input to the dean and faculty in their work for the School as, for example, the Dean s Student Advisory Council and advisory boards for Social Work, FACS, and the MBA. Most of the School s staff and faculty are housed in White Hall, a 1970 s structure known for its heavy foot traffic and unfavorable floor plan. The Department of Psychology occupies a partially renovated space on the main floor of Stutzman-Slonaker. The FACS Apparel Construction and Foods labs are also located in Stutzman-Slonaker while the Anthropology/Archeology Lab is located in Snyder. BASS Strengths The School is home to some of the university s most popular majors (Business, Psychology, Sociology), and is second only to the School of Education and Professional Studies in overall enrollment. The programs are among the highest in student FTE and lowest in cost to the university. The School faculty is committed to student success through program rigor, currency, and quality one-on-one mentoring and advising. That commitment includes the adoption of Liberal Education and America s Promise (LEAP) standards from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC & U), i.e. Essential Learning Outcomes and High-Impact Practices. These standards constitute the framework of the university s new Core Curriculum. Instructors coordinate experiential learning opportunities such as internships and co-ops and offer solid guidance in career evaluation and placement. More specifically, instructors are innovative in the use of case studies, simulations, interactive technologies, field experiences, online and hybrid courses, and real-world scenarios with creative problem solving. The School of Business and Social Sciences is a campus leader in conducting domestic and international study tours. All departments have up-to-date assessment plans and data on file and many faculty persons take advantage of the assistance in assessment offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning. Individual departments showcase student capstone and/or special projects in special sessions open to the campus and community. Each year faculty advisors/mentors also help their students prepare for presentations at the Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Social Science Research Conference. Students in BASS programs invest in the community through volunteerism, service learning, internships, and co-ops, e.g. law enforcement offices, correctional facilities, counseling centers, child welfare agencies, area hospitals, 3

small businesses, financial institutions, governmental agencies, Congress, the judiciary, and accounting firms. The School of Business and Social Sciences is home to a rich mix of student organizations and co-curricular opportunities that challenge our students to a high degree of activity on the campus and beyond. The School initiated and co-sponsors Professional Connections Day, inviting professionals from the community to campus for a series of panel discussions on careers and career preparation. Student academic excellence is recognized with departmental scholarships and honors, the Dean s List, graduate awards, the spring Student Recognition Day, and McMurran Scholars Convocation. Graduating business, accounting, and economics students are honored with a reception/banquet and Social Work students have a formal pinning ceremony before each campus commencement ceremony. Most members of the faculty are active researchers, publish their work, and engage in ongoing professional enhancement, some of them earning professional credits each year. They are active across campus in myriad service capacities, including leadership on committees and boards; some also serve in community capacities such as the Rural Financial Planning Initiative Advisory Board. BASS faculty are recipients of university awards, e.g. research and advising, as well as endowed Faculty Excellence Awards. Students and faculty benefit from newly updated classroom technologies, a relatively low student to faculty ratio, and access to nearby metropolitan areas, agencies, information sources, and research facilities. The campus offers a plethora of good resources, e.g. the Scarborough Library; Center for Teaching and Learning; community service coordinator; summer orientations; Student Affairs; Facilities Management; and other entities and programs. The School is characterized by good communication and a culture of collegiality. Retention of faculty and staff has been good. As identified by the Dean s Student Advisory Board, the School is committed to moving Shepherd University forward and to building leaders with the skills and knowledge to shape a better world. Weaknesses From Fall 2006 to Fall 2010 the number of majors in BASS decreased by 3.5%, with the greatest decreases in Economics and Business Administration (University Census Fall 2010). BASS was the only school among the four on Shepherd s campus to show a decrease in that time frame. The School of Business and Social Sciences has an overall budget of $2.5 million, but only 4 percent of that budget is non-personnel, and departments as a whole are seriously underfunded. The budget cannot support additional needed support staff, equipment, infrastructure, and instructional resources. The shortage of funds for faculty professional 4

travel and office operations is a pressing and ongoing concern and poses a threat to new faculty recruitment and retention. Unlike some areas on campus, the School of Business and Social Sciences does not assess a large number of course and program fees and, thus, does not have a significant pool of special fees money from which to fund aspects of classroom instruction. The School generates a great deal of tuition revenue, but due to funding formulas, it does not receive in its budget an amount commensurate with the revenue it generates. Grant writing is not well developed in this School. Approximately half of the teaching staff in the School of Business and Social Sciences is composed of part-time adjunct instructors. We recognize the need to augment the proportion of full-time faculty in the interests of maintaining and building our programs, offering value-added advising and mentoring, and bolstering our commitment to experiential student learning opportunities such as service projects and internships. Full-time faculty faces growing workloads in advising, committee service, and teaching responsibilities; the load is particularly heavy for department chairs, some of whom receive only one course release per year. Adding full-time faculty to the ranks and increasing chair release time would help to ease these burdens. Untenured and adjunct faculty would benefit from a more full-blown approach to faculty mentoring. Faculty professional development and scholarly activity have been given greater attention, with heightened expectations, since Shepherd made the transition from college to university. The addition of graduate courses and programs has led to scrutiny of faculty qualifications for graduate faculty status. The university and School must be committed to supporting professional enhancement opportunities for junior faculty development, faculty re-tooling, chairperson training/mentoring, and scholarly research, presentation, and publication. Poor budgets make this difficult. The School lacks a public space, a commons, for faculty and student interaction and relaxation. Similarly, the building does not have adequate space for faculty offices, some classrooms have rather poor viewing angles, and only four cubicles are designated for use by forty adjunct faculty (BASS and History). Like the campus in general, the School does not exhibit much diversity in students, staff, and faculty. The School supports the campus-wide effort to build diversity in these populations. Ethics and integrity education have not been addressed regularly or systematically at the school level. Guest lectures, handouts, and informational sessions could be utilized. The faculty shoulders a very heavy load of advising responsibilities. The School will continue to participate in campus-wide discussions on this important issue. 5

The departments have not been aggressive in recruitment, nor have they given appropriate attention to retention. Programs have not been well marketed, web pages and brochures await updating, and there are too few linkages to high schools and community colleges. Fundraising and alumni connections are not currently a part of the culture of the departments. Opportunities Curricular reform is a main point in the university s strategic plan. All departments have made curricular adjustments and innovations over the past year consistent with the plan, LEAP standards, and disciplinary trends. Curricular innovation, graduate programs, and continuing education are areas for growth, in particular, campus internationalization, interdisciplinary studies, criminology, pre-law, ethics education, hospitality-food management, nutrition and wellness, finance, and financial planning. Departments can develop advisory boards, offer courses in creative formats, better define course rotations/schedules, and encourage faculty-student research collaboration. There is great potential for collaboration between disciplines and schools. The FACS Foods Lab, for example, can be utilized in connection with Continuing Education, Nursing, graduate courses, Recreation and Tourism, and special events hosted by students in the FACS program. Faculty workloads are heavy and need to be lightened by the addition of more full-time faculty; faculty line proposals will continue to move forward from the School. We will advocate at appropriate venues for more chair release time. The School remains committed to face-to-face instruction (we offer a few online courses), small to moderate class size, and one-on-one advising and mentoring of its students. Advising is under the microscope on the Shepherd campus and BASS must be active in the discussions, engage in evaluation of its advising repertoire, and take steps to improve in this area. There are ample opportunities for more active engagement of students, i.e. service learning projects, internships and coops, faculty-student research, student assistants, and student representatives on advisory boards. Faculty can be given incentives to incorporate LEAP goals and high-impact practices into the curriculum. Ethics and integrity education can be incorporated into coursework, guest lectures, workshops, and informational segments at School meetings. Technology must remain a priority. It engages students in a global learning environment, supports skills development in data and information management, and prepares graduates to work in a dynamic, technologically savvy world. As previously noted, the Department of Social Work has been very successful in securing grants, particularly, the Title IV-E grants to support education of foster parents and social work practitioners. Grant writing is a definite opportunity for all BASS departments. 6

The School is comprised of a dynamic variety of faculty and programs and is known for its deep commitment to academic rigor and student achievement. At the same time the School lacks a unifying theme and/or image for internal reference as well as public relations. School and departmental websites need to be brought into visual consistency with the university brand and upgraded and amplified with an eye to integrated marketing of the School s programs. Recruitment is a topic of discussion, departments utilize admissions data/lists, and program marketing is mainly tied to larger campus efforts. Opportunities for more diversity in the faculty and student body need to be explored and developed. There is a need to showcase and celebrate the achievements and distinctions of the School of Business and Social Sciences. Countless opportunities exist for community outreach in the Eastern Panhandle and proximate areas. This demands resources, reassigned or release time for professors, and appropriate incentive/reward mechanisms to engage more students and faculty in public and private arenas. The School s departments and faculty serve as an information resource center for the region on topics such as small business development, taxation, foster parenting, criminology, and policy analysis. A Speakers Bureau could be developed and linked into the School s website, university communications, and social media. Individual departments have cultivated alumni connections to varying degrees. Alumni connections are integral to fundraising and can play a very useful role in internship and career placements. Most departments do not maintain updated lists of alums. Alumni connections need to be more vigorously developed by departments, the School, and by the university in general. Similarly, emeriti should be more actively integrated into the activities of our School and campus. The School does not have a history of fundraising for its programs and, therefore, most departments do not have established foundation accounts. Like the campus in general, a culture of giving will have to be developed if programs and facilities are to be enriched by donors. Endowments like those established for Business and Accounting are areas to pursue. Threats The major threats to the School can be briefly summarized: Lack of financial resources in support of personnel and program enhancement; shortage of human infrastructure to handle a growing workload in departments and the school; issues of student 7

preparedness; flat enrollments; aggressive marketing by other institutions; revenue challenges posed by the in-state and out-of-state ratio; student retention rates below targets; graduation rates below targets; morale issues; and ongoing external accountability pressures such as to the taxpayer, state, and accrediting bodies. BASS Goals and Action Plans University Pathways and Priorities Pathway #1: Inspire student learning and development Strategic Priority #1: Improve the quality of learning across the curriculum Goal #1: Incorporate LEAP standards, including cognitive and affective outcomes, into curricula, instructional methodologies, and all course syllabi Actors: All undergraduate faculty, under the leadership of the chairs Time: Begin academic year 2011-2012, tied to course creation and approval or rotation Measure: Review of syllabi (Guidance from General Studies Committee) Judges: Chairs and Dean Primary Core Values: Learning and Engagement Goal #2: Support faculty innovation in the classroom consistent with LEAP standards, including faculty-student projects Actors: Dean and VPAA; application to BASS Development Committee (define innovation) Time: Begin academic year 2012-2013; ongoing Measures: Grants (part of stipend based on proposal; final portion based on demonstrated use); summary report Judges: BASS Development Committee; classroom observation Primary Core Values: Learning and Engagement Goal #3: Evaluation of enrollment and retention issues in the major, with recommendations Actors: School committee; Office of Institutional Research Time: Begin academic year 2011-2012; completed report in 2012-2013 Measure: Enrollment-Retention Report Judges: School faculty Primary Core Value: Learning; Engagement 8

Pathway #2: Optimize potential of faculty and staff Priority #11: Enhance professional development programs for faculty and staff Goal #1: Evaluate/add means of strengthening departmental and School budgets Actors: Chairs, Dean, Academic Affairs Time: Begin academic year 2011-2012, ongoing Measure: Increases in budgets Judges: Dean and Chairs Primary Core Value: Accessibility Goal #2: Support and encourage faculty scholarly activities and output, e.g. financial support for professional presentations and workshops Actors: Dean, Chairs, Academic Affairs Time: Begin academic year 2011-2012; ongoing Measure: Faculty annual reports and evaluations Judges: Dean and Chairs Primary Core Values: Learning and Engagement * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *The BASS Strategic Plan, 2012-2017, was written by the BASS Strategic Planning Committee and is the outcome of more than a year of committee meetings and conversations with the school s faculty and staff. The BASS plan mirrors the form and spirit of the Shepherd University Strategic Plan and utilizes the same Core Values, Pathways, and Strategic Priorities. A school mission statement was written and revised numerous times; that was followed by an environmental scan/analysis of internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). Goals and action plans were developed as a natural outgrowth of the SWOT analysis. From a list of nearly twenty suggestions, the final document contains five goals with accompanying action plans under the Pathways: 1) Inspire Student Learning and Development, and 2) Optimize Potential of Faculty and Staff. The five goals are tied to Strategic Priorities 1 and 11 from the Shepherd plan. The dean convened the BASS Strategic Planning Committee in the Fall of 2010; meetings and work sessions were held through the spring and summer of 2011. A draft document was presented to Chairs Council Fall Semester 2011; it was taken to the full faculty of the school in October. It was revised and endorsed by Chairs Council in November, and endorsed by the school faculty at the January 2012 school meeting. Planning Committee: Dr. Gordon DeMeritt, Department of Business Administration/FACS ; Dr. Ann Marie Legreid, Dean-Planning Chair; Dr. Mark Stern, Department of Political Science; Dr. Richie Stevens, College Student Development and Administration; and Dr. Chip Zimmer, Department of Business Administration/FACS. 9