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| Initiative | Status | Comments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Completed | In-Progress | Not Completed | Altered | ||
| Goal 3 | |||||
| Undergraduate Excellence | |||||
| Objectives* | |||||
| 1. Enhance the Undergraduate Curriculum | |||||
| Deployment Strategies | |||||
| 1. Increase the amount and quality of student writing in degree programs and in general education. | Completed | Addition of two writing intensive courses in general education (2005-2006). | |||
| 2. Increase standards in degree programs. Revising the Honors program to have higher standards. | In-Progress | Developed a new Undergraduate Majors template (see Quick Links on MSU homepage). The new Honors programs being developed. NOTE: COB raised standards in 2006 (GPA) and 2008 (MATH). | |||
| 3. Seek accreditations and treat program review as "internal accreditation." | In-Progress | The Annual Student Learning Assessment Reporting, Program Review (procedure, calendars, checklist, others) and External Accreditation information are defined on the Program Review under the University Assessment website. | |||
| 4. Clarify admission, retention and graduation standards within majors, and enforce prerequisites. | In-Progress | EISRS/DARS enforcing prerequisites. DARS updates and enforces academic curriculum for the graduation every year. | |||
| 5. Encourage all degree programs to develop some form of capstone experience that requires students to demonstrate some level of mastery of knowledge and skills needed by a graduate of the program. | Not Completed | More work needs to be done in this area | |||
| 6. Consider adoption of a +/- option to the grading system. | Completed | Started summer of 2008. | |||
| 7. In addition to current First Year Experience seminars, develop and implement a "discipline-based" first year seminar. | In-Progress | Created 11 specific discipline based first year seminars. They are Anatomy of Nursing, Army ROTC, Aviation, Dental Hygiene, Elementary Education, Introduction to Business and Economics: Section I and II, Pre-Engineering Section I: Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Pre-Engineering Section II: Electrical and Computer Engineering and Women in Science and Engineering. | |||
| 8. Develop and implement a "Common Reader" program as part of the First Year Experience courses (FYEX). | In-Progress | Several Proposals are under review. | |||
| 9. Recommendations that are already being implemented and need to continue: | |||||
9a. Develop General Education course "Clusters." |
Not Completed | Provided 2 courses (1) The City (2) Scientific Method. No advertisement done. | |||
9b. Streamline the General Education course approval process. |
In-Progress | Implemented new processes including development of Curriculum Design System (CDS) to be implemented Fall, 2008. | |||
9c. Assess General Education courses and program. |
Completed | Annual Student Learning Assessment Reporting, Program Review (procedure, calendars, checklist, others) and External Accreditation information are defined on the Program Review under the University Assessment website. | |||
| Objectives* | |||||
| 2. Enhance Faculty Academic Quality | |||||
| Deployment Strategies | |||||
| 10. Encourage and support innovation and creativity in faculty workload. | |||||
10a. Allow faculty within a department to reallocate emphases within the five Article 22 criteria for Professional Development Plans. |
In-Progress | Some Deans are beginning to experiment with this approval. | |||
10b. Allow departments to meet student demand for courses in innovative ways. |
Completed | Implementation of hybrid courses, Extended learning-on-line options, The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning certificate program. | |||
| 11. Revise the method by which faculty instruction is evaluated. | In-Progress | The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Mentor program. NOTE: MBA uses ETS to test content knowledge at graduation. | |||
| 12. Enhance financial and other support for faculty development and faculty assistance. | |||||
12a. Continue and enhance support for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. |
Completed | Started funding additional staff members and a graduate assistant in the Center for Academic Success on January 1, 2005. Administrated by (CETL) the IPESL grant of $350,000 fromMnSCU which supported critical thinking (See CETL website). Awarded $7.5 million to College of Arts & Humanities by the Andreas family. | |||
12b. As part of the upcoming Capital Campaign, the University should emphasize the creation of an endowment for Faculty Development. |
Completed | Began establishing faculty development endowment with advancement. Andreas gift of $7.5 million for the College of Arts & Humanities. | |||
12c. Provide support in the form of paraprofessionals to work with faculty in areas such as lab set-up and maintenance, technical support, and non-teaching components of classroom activities. |
Completed | The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Instructional Designer; International Programs Director; MnCEME funded lab techs. | |||
| Objectives* | |||||
| 3. Enhance Student Academic Quality | |||||
| Deployment Strategies | |||||
| 13. Enhance Academic Advising services. | Completed | Weekly meeting by the SRC's. Working with MSSA to develop advising infrastructure. Working on an advising portal. Academic Advising Forum has 6 on-campus advising webinars. | |||
| 14. Establish an Academic Honor Code on campus with emphasis on education and enforcement issues. | Altered | Discussed and Rejected | |||
| 15. Enhance funding and other resources for the Center for Academic Success. | In-Progress | Started funding additional staff members and a graduate assistant in the Center for Academic Success on January 1, 2005. After the end of the MnSCU Chancellor’s grant. | |||
| 16. Establish more student study areas in academic buildings, student union, residential life and athletics. | Completed | New Trafton Building lounge, CSU Hearth Room; SEARS Residents Hall Lobby. | |||
| 17. Consider changes to Library open hours to better serve students on campus and planned expansion of Friday-Saturday classes. | Completed | Changed the Library hours with more evening, weekend and summer hours. | |||
| 18. Establish an all-student convocation similar to the faculty-staff convocation in order to set a tone of academic excellence at the very beginning of the academic year. | Completed | Established Freshmen convocation in the fall 2006. | |||
| 19. Better publicize and promote undergraduate academic honor societies and review requirements for academic honors. | In-Progress | Redesigning the Honors program to increase students. Phi Beta Sigma, Presidential Scholar Mentor Program, Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key Honor Societies. NOTE: Beta Gamma Sigma reception/recognition each semester. | |||
| *Source:Strategic Plan, September 2005 (Objectives, pg. 4) (Deployment Strategies, pg. 9) | |||||
| Note: Critical to the mission of the University, "To Promote Learning", undergraduate studies elaborated on the objectives and the deployment strategies to show their accomplishments. | |||||
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University, Mankato
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