QEP meeting

June 1, 2005

Attending: J. Woodbury, R. Forti, D. Morrissey, M. Garrett, C. Clouse, D. Shuttlesworth

Discussed community response to proposed QEP topic

· Key Competencies include Basic skills and Entry level testing and follow-up

• Remove “other assessment needs”
• Assessment committee recommendations must tie with QEP. Duane is working on Department measures.

· Faculty Development

• Need data from faculty on types of faculty development attended

Do we need to involve the Graduate school and graduate students? Joni will discuss this when she speaks to SACS.

Repost QEP topic for further community feedback

Discussion involved which key competencies should be included. Reviewed Union Catalog page 8-9 for “goals for general education.” It was decided that we would only include the key competencies that were part of the original QEP (reading, writing and math)

Proposed outline that will be posted on webpage for community feedback:

Proposed QEP Topic: Engagement: The Key to Student Success

1. Improving Key Competencies

· Goals for General Education

o Communication Skills

§ Write

§ Read

o General Knowledge

§ Math

§ Question: Committee requests your ideas for improving key competencies in these areas.

· These are best practices at other institutions; please if you have any comments on these, please respond on how we might best incorporate them at Union. If you know of any other best practices please let us know.

2. Improving Advisement

o How can we improve? For example, one proposal is that Freshman Seminar instructors advise freshmen in their first year. An important component of this plan would be specific training for handling typical problems faced by new students.

o Faculty Training: What type of workshops & how often? For example, would faculty read an Advising Newsletter? Or a five-minute presentation at faculty meetings by the Director of Advisement?

3. Improving Instructional Strategies

o How can faculty improve strategies to facilitate student learning outcomes? What kind of incentives can we provide for faculty to develop new teaching and better ways to engage students? For example, Clayton College provides faculty development grants for those who present ideas for enhancing teaching strategies to their colleagues.

Options for paring QEP topic down to more limited focus:

Key Competencies + Advisement + Instructional Strategies

Key Competencies + Advisement

Key Competencies + Instructional Strategies

Key Competencies

Submit research and best practices to Joni who will add them to the literature review on the website.

Next meeting: June 8 at 9:00 am