Present: Lee Ayers, SOU; Solveig Holmquist, WOU; Craig Wollner, PSU; Peter Gilkey, UO; Maureen Sevigny, OIT; Jane Perri, OIT; Lani Roberts, OSU; John Nicols, UO; Kathie Lasater, OHSU; Janet Crum, OHSU; Janet Hume-Schwarz, EOU; Dan Wilson, SOU; Kate Hunter-Jaworski, OSU, Joanne Sorte, OSU.
The meeting was called to order at 1:00 PM by IFS President Ayers.
1:05 - 1:20 Linda Brady, Provost of UO. Provost Brady welcomed members of IFS. She reported that Board was reviewing Revenue forecasts, which do appear to be a bit bleak. There is a new program at the UO for students to ensure that all students who are able to do the work at the UO will have the opportunity to attend regardless of financial status. There is a nonprofit institution in Washington DC that looks at access, affordability and diversity. The UO received a grade of D from this institution. As a consequence, the UO made an intensive review. They looked into closing the gap and discovered that with a little adjustment the UO could make the change. Pathway Oregon will be instituted in Fall 2008. It will be able to fulfill the need in closing the gap. There are two other components. One involves including a housing subsidy to students with 2.8+ GPA. Perhaps 40 of the Pathway students are involved. Will help recruit and reinforce number of students who live on campus. The other component is academic support to Pathway students. Just admitting more students and not retaining them to graduation will not be regarded as a sucess. Additional advising and faculty assistance have been brought on. They will be discussing more involvement of faculty and staff who are first generation college graduation. If UO invests the time and money, then the students can succeed. The provost wants to expand the program for all of the UO students, but they have a special committment to these students.
1:00-2:05 Robert Turner (OUS) presented a discussion of proposed new High School Diploma Requirements. These are to be a new set of graduation requirements pertaining to students graduating after Fall 08. There are nine essential skills which cover different areas -- the draft presented is version 5. The Essential Skills are intended to be cross disciplinary. Writing skills will be taken on by all disciplines. A key question is what these new diploma requirements will mean on our level and how these essential skills will be assessed. There are several task forces which are being presented. Professor Turner presented examples from biology which could review skills such as writing, applied mathematics, personal management and teamwork, reading and listening. He emphasized that these skills were not content based. A proposal was to reflect the subject grade and the essential skills in different manners. His primary question was to know what kinds of assessments that we in OUS want to see coming from the Highschool. Is it to be the SAT writing exam or a perhaps a writing portfolio? The question to be focussed on is what we ill put more credibility in and it is essential to keep in mind that the Essential Skills are not contentent dependent.
The subgroup (Essential Skills) has met and made recommendations to the full Standards and Assessments Taskforce -- the full Standards and Assessments task force will meet in April 2008. Professor Turner emphasized that decisions must be made now as the ODE will implement new diploma beginning Fall 2008. He noted that OUS had applauded the ODE because it will help to make the students to be workforce and post-secondary school ready -- this is the real purpose of the high school diploma. However, until OUS knows how measurements will be made, we can't insure that students will be ready. Students graduating in 2012 will be given the diploma. Right now 10th graders take a writing test as part of assessment process. Currently this is a grading process by 2 evaluators with a score of 0-6. This may continue to be a great assessment in the new Essential Skills area. Professor Turner suggested that it be 3rd party assessment. There is a math exam but has been given to students in the 10th grade as well which is more content oriented rather than skills area.
One question that was involved how will ODE insure that High School teachers will apply these Essential Skills reliably? ODE will have to do professional development with teachers. Are there resources available to pay for all of these tests? ODE is planning to begin will pay for every student to take a national exam (ACT of SAT). OSU faculty has reported to Bob that faculty has lost confidence in GPA. This is also the point with entrance to graduate schools. GRE is used rather than the GPA. Universities could be placed in the same category as high schools.
Professor Turner emphasized that local control will be important in some areas but it may cause the same problem with inflated GPA. One IFS member suggested that the taskforces review other states that have instituted programs similar to this. They have already overcome problems with instituting new systems. California has a system such as what is coming in Oregon. Bob will send the URL for the CA site.
Professor Turner stated that what is needed at present from the OUS faculty is documentation and feedback concerning what we feel is the nature of an assessment. Professor Turner will try to put together the feedback that he receives and give this to OUS. It was felt that the rigor of the diploma was not being increased but instead was being brought up to where it should have been all along.
Special needs students requirements have not yet been addressed in this process.
2:20-2:00 pm. Robert Turner (OUS) and Ruth Keele presented a discussion of the reevaluation of the Peer Comparator Institution List. Ruth was part of the group that created the original list of peer comparator institutions. Plan is to going to a few more groups and ask for feedback. Basically what attributes are important in defining your institution to your faculty. Would like some feedback through IFS from other institutions. OSU has a faculty welfare committee that has a document to pass on to the peer comparator institutions committee as a response. Bob would like to know the thinking of the OSU faculty welfare committee. The document is located on the OSU faculty senate website. Filing out the template was not easy. The OUS peer comparator institution's final list will be used by administrators, legislators, and other performance indicators in analysis. The major problem is that OSU, OIT and others universities are so unusual in their course offerings, that there are no individual comparators. It is possible that each of the regionals will have its own list of peer comparator institutions. It may be possible to match programs but not complete institutions for OIT an OSU. Will try to match institutions and assess on programs (outputs) and not finances (inputs). There really is no exact match for any of the OUS institutions. OUS must accept the differences in comparators and must be able to articulate the variances.
SOU's Public Liberal Arts College (COPLAC) and EOU College of Education and Business. OUS and legislators do need one specific, reasonable list for funding, salaries and other comparisons. The peer comparator institutions list must have validity. OUS does recognizes that the institutions do need other lists for specific comparators in program analysis, strategic planning and Will do testing and evaluations before final lists are made to determine differences. The separate lists may overlap but will be separate for each institution. Spreadsheet will be weighted with attributes. The weights develop into a ÒZÓ score and the smaller the ÒZÓ score the better. Several reiterations will take place and then the institutions will review the new and old list with time allotted for feedback. Board will be informed but not necessarily have to approve.
Would like feedback, concerns that the committee should be aware of during this process. July will be month when the Board will reconsider the comparators lists so there is some time for comment. Remember to include aspirational as well as academic comparators.
3:00-4:05 pm. Herb Chereck, Registrar, UO The Registrar's Perspective Registrar Chereck noted that the more invisible that the registrar's office is, the more effective they are. Presented technology being used in the registrar's office. 4 different items on what is out there and what they can do.
A new pilot project for Online Course Evaluations (Math, Business & Political Science tested in Fall 2008). System goes live as of the end of W08 at UO. Must be completed during dead week. Students can opt out at specific parts of the evaluation. If they don't complete, there is no access to grades. There are 4 university wide questions and then department to course level there are more questions. University required questions are now available for each faculty member through the registrar's website.
There is a challenge in academic relationships - distance education, partnerships and multi-disciplinary courses. Discussion was heard about Advance Placement and College credit for High School students some students didn't even know that they had the credit.
4:20-4:40 pm. Robert Turner (OUS) and Ruth Keele continued the discussion of the Peer Comparator Institution list.
Additional peer considerations - where are students going and where are faculty you wanted to hire going? Numerous issues were brought up about inability to hire faculty. IFS should start to accumulate data on faculty hires. Why not accepted, what is difference in workload for failed searches? Send the data to Bob Turner and Lee Ayers as well. UO of sometimes takes as long as 2 years to fill a position. By 2025, OUS wants all 40% of students to be AAOT current level is 26%.
4:40-4:45 pm. John Nicols (IFS) presented a discussion of an Online Version for New Course Proposals
Course can be introduced in with relative speed. All items are entered and then submitted through the internet to the Curriculum Committee.
4:45-6:15 pm. George Pernsteiner, Chancellor, OUS. He gave a report from OUS Board Meeting. We are currently in a supplemental session. The Legislators were hoping to get through with no real issues, but is not true. Drivers license was suppose to be the only real issue. However revenue forecast came in extremely low. Legislators considering what to do now so that they don't have to come back as often - empower decision making - ask agencies 2% decrease in budget. Will not release salary money right now - frozen and will not get in February - expect to release in June when new revenue forecast is due. If forecast is down, some or all will be released. May come as problem for PSU who has not settled salaries as of yet. All current contracts will be honored.
The State Economist reported that none of the signs he is seeing look like those from 2001. It is likely that the recession, if it is one, that it will be brief, and shallow. If that is true, then the Chancellor will be able to move into the next biennium with hope. Chancellor's message is that we do not derail anything that we have planned. We will continue on the same path as planned. We may face a 1-year reduction in year two. There is a potential for less investment capital in the next biennium but we will continue to request similar amounts.
Will be looking at some changes, new initiatives out of board committees, provost council and research council. Want to add graduate student into definition of student for funding purposes. Also will seek two capital projects in the supplemental session.
We will assert Package 101, which consists of enrollment growth, faculty salaries and student faculty ratio. Must be sure what value will be added so that we can approach Legislators. Additional initiatives that will be considered to bring in students that don't usually come, K-12 issues and research issues.
OUS will, depending on what the economy does; seek constitutional status on funding higher education. Begins to build in taxpayers that college is a birthright.
Something must be done about tort claim insurance. All campuses will be seeking quotes. Segregate risk, some areas have high cap and others will have lower caps.
Bend campus was told that Bend enroll must go up to a reasonable level (within 10 years they must quadruple enrollment); otherwise funds will be pulled. The Bend money was line itemed by the Legislators.
Question was posed to Chancellor asking if the Pathway Oregon program may strap the teaching ability of faculty. This may exacerbate the problem with differences between regionals and larger universities. There will be a drop in the year 2015 that will reverse. The demand that the workforce will that society will have for more educated workers. We need to reach out to the adult market and first time college graduate population. It is still possible to raise our enrollment. We have other markets to tap.
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