The 20 June Executive Committee meeting gave folks a chance to talk about their own progress on each of their various (and myriad) projects.  The gist:  tagging documents, collecting summer syllabi, wrapping up assessment processes for a cycle, AT6, retreats are over (!!!), and corrupted documents.  Whew!

We’re still hoping to hold a mock review in July, but the deadlines are close and we may not be as ready as we’d like.  We’ve targeted 16 and 17 July with five reviewers.

JoyLynn Reed reviewed her ideas about needed improvements in the next assessment cycle. [Hey, we've been doing assessment stuff for years, but trying to broaden the participation base hasn't exactly been a cake walk.  (And for those of you too young to know what a cake walk is, ask someone with grey hair.)]  It’s clear our focus has to shift slightly so that we’re really talking more about improvement rather than accountability.  Some folks are completely turned off by anything that sounds like “No Child Left Behind.”  Everyone’s more engaged with improvement (at least, that’s the way it seems today).  John Sibert added that we need to consider more emphasis on curricular alignment so as to tighten some of the “maps” in some disciplines.

Document security arose again.  What about Academic Program Review documents?  What about the President’s response to the review team?  It seems the answer is much as you might expect:  Some of it is “classified” and some of it isn’t.  (Hey, those CV’s are in there again.)

GEMS!  (No, not the little do-nuts.)  Gateways to Excellence in Mathematic and Science.  Catchy, huh?  The QEP Council continues to meet twice weekly.  Current “plans” will be presented to the President and Provost shortly.

Hey, we’re making headway here.

Yes, the QEP team continues to move forward, with meetings and more meetings.  More importantly, however, the team has narrowed its focus to look at gateway courses–and some very specific gateway courses, at that.

The discussion continues to revolve around one central theme:  Improving student achievement, specifically in the gateway courses, so as to improve student success, student retention, and student persistence to graduation.  (Sounds like that’s exactly what the QEP is supposed to do to me.)

Even better, we have lots (and I do mean LOTS) of data that show how students have been doing in math and science courses, in particular, and what impact prior enrollment, high school coursework, and classroom particulars can have.  For example, Undergraduate Education has now run a couple of cycles of comparing “You WILL be held accountable for your attendance” and “We’ll be checking attendance” in classes.  You know what?  If students come to class regularly, they perform better.  (Who’d have thought?)

Dr. Sibert has been working on the research end of this project and has looked at several potential angles to play in the QEP proposal.  He’ll be attending the upcoming QEP conference in Kentucky in July and should be able to nail it down for a “final” proposal in mid-August.

Cool.