Members present: Trudy Banta, Karen Black, Victor Borden, Sharon Hamilton, Julie Hatcher, Sara Heiliger, Susan Kahn, Steve MacLaughlin
Members absent: Bob Bringle
Report from Civic Engagement
Julie handed out a Preliminary Outline of NCA Special Emphasis Self-Study on Civic Engagement. She explained that much of the narrative to fill in the outline can be drawn from other recent reports. She also wants to make use of the information gathered for the NCHEMS site visit on civic engagement.
The group was interested in seeing the criteria that NCHEMS used to choose IUPUI as a model for civic engagement.
Vic suggested that the civic engagement outline could include a section on institutional awards and recognitions.
Karen asked how strengths and weaknesses would be addressed in the civic engagement self-study. She explained that NCA expects us to include this type of evaluative information. Sharon commented that, as a consultant-evaluator, she prefers to see strengths and weaknesses summarized at the end of a self-study, rather than woven throughout.
Trudy suggested that Julie look at the University of Illinois"s self-study on civic engagement, which was required of all public institutions in the state of Illinois. Susan added she would give Julie a copy of UMKC"s special emphasis self-study on community partnerships.
Steve addressed the civic engagement inventory. He explained that about eight people are entering information and he is keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. He has noticed through this process that people know bits and pieces of information about activities, but often you need multiple people from the same department to provide a complete picture. Vic suggested that we create a list of contact people for projects.
Sharon noted that Gail Plater would be the one who knows in Liberal Arts; Trudy added that Phil Hardwick has a list of the development people in each of the schools.
Vic will send an email to each dean and the development people in each school to determine who should be asked to fill out the inventory for each school.
Julie suggested that we also contact directors of institutes and centers, such as the Center on Philanthropy or the Polis Center. She added that she and Bob are thinking of doing a baseline survey of community advisory council members about perceptions of IUPUI"s civic engagement. Vic suggested aligning this survey with the civic engagement inventory given to the deans. The Holland Matrix might be useful for this purpose.
Julie explained that the plan is to arrange the information in the Civic Engagement Inventory by topic, for example homelessness or education. This is how external stakeholders are interested in seeing it.
Vic suggested that a geographic arrangement of the information would also be helpful for describing IUPUI"s engagement with specific neighborhoods.
Teaching and Learning Report
Susan passed out short narratives for each of eight objectives for the teaching and learning self-study. For each objective, she noted the PRAC rating, main arguments, evidence, examples, and sources of evidence.
Under Maintain Teaching as an Institutional Priority, Karen questioned the statement that alumni and students rate IUPUI highly on the quality of teaching. Trudy noted that the satisfaction rate from our surveys is around 82-83 percent, while at other institutions it can be as high as 97-98 percent. She suggested we use NSSE as comparison data to the national norm and we look at other urban universities and how they rate student satisfaction with quality of instruction.
Susan asked for ideas about what kinds of information should be included in this category. The group suggested: rewards, initiatives, salary increases based on teaching, changes in policy and practices on tenure and promotion. Karen noted that PRAC felt support for teaching is not strong at the school level; Susan noted that faculty satisfaction surveys show that satisfaction with rewards for teaching is improving. Vic added that instructional workload provides some evidence of emphasis on teaching.
The group moved on to the next objective: Provide Appropriate Resources for Teaching. Karen suggested citing the new technology building as evidence that the institution is providing such resources.
The PRAC rating for this item was red; they evaluated class size and facilities for teaching as poor. Trudy noted that the facilities vary greatly across schools. The PRAC members" information is generally limited to what is going on in their schools.
The group discussed the next objective: Maintain and Enhance Inclusiveness in the Curriculum. It was suggested that Richard Turner has useful information for this objective. Another suggestion was to look at NSSE responses related to diversity and inclusiveness. The Campus Climate for Diversity Self-Study also includes helpful information.
Next, the group commented on Use Evidence of Student Learning to Guide Teaching and Curricular Improvement. Members suggested finding out how departments are using the alumni surveys. Karen added that column 5 of the annual PRAC reports includes information on yearly improvements.
Sharon suggested that participation in the Summer Faculty Writing Forum might provide evidence for this objective. She also noted that we can show increased participation in initiatives like FACET.
The next objective is: Continually Improve Students" General and Major Specific Learning Outcomes. Evidence here might include information from the PRAC reports and trends in responses to the alumni survey. Trudy commented that we need to make clear that the majority of our graduates are transfer students, so we can"t use pre and post tests. We have to look at the end product-what students can do. The student e-portfolio will be helpful for tracking student progress.
Evidence can also be drawn from the faculty associates" reports, junior-senior integrator courses, the School of Science assessment model for the capstone, the document on PRAC grants (from Karen), the Office of Campus Writing, the Math Assistance Center, the Faculty Learning Community on the capstone experience, Greater Expectations, and the Critical Inquiry initiative.
