Meeting called to order with most members present. Minutes approved.

Special Presentation on HLC Compliance

Presenter Richard Jarman

Progress on syllabus compliance and future plans. HLC concerned with consistency of teaching course objectives across sections and delivery modes.

• intensive information campaign to faculty
• preliminary audit of syllabi to see if they matched ACF outcomes; follow-up via Deans
• postcard will be mailed to all faculty
• early posting of syllabi with deadline Jan 8, rather than at the start of classes, to allow for review
• pop-up message in Blackboard with reminders

This involves a cultural shift to internalizing these aspects of compliance.

Curriculum Process update. Task force of administration and faculty was charged with identifying needs for changes based on Academic Affairs reorganization. Improve consistency of curriculum procedures.

General Education Outcomes update. Reviewed 2009 set of Gen Ed outcomes, showed example of curriculum mapping for a general Chemistry class. Need to align our Gen Ed outcomes more clearly with degree requirements; make outcomes more achievable and less aspirational. A committee has been working on this. Preliminary draft of revised outcomes lists overarching Critical Thinking and Information Literacy, with five other areas that are associated with specific areas of curriculum.

HLC Criterion 4.b. we received feedback needing to how how assessment results are being used to improve curriculum. Currently laying plans for how this will be enacted.

Chair Bennett: asks questions about some of the logistics regarding the syllabus checking.

Trustee Bernstein: asks how to assess something like critical thinking. Toler responds and describes how Gen Ed artifacts were evaluated for critical thinking. Bernstein: what part of this process was missing for HLC? Stewart: closing the loop to use the data on the outcomes to improve curriculum. Bernstein: that makes it clear.

VP Dowling: complimented the postcard with info on syllabus compliance. Asked about whether Early Alert is included in the syllabus. Answer: no.

Pres Rondeau: suggests that Jarman’s presentation be made to the BOT, to show the depth of work being done by faculty. Bennett: will be reporting to the full BOT. Should we give a more detailed presentation? Rondeau: agenda is already set for this meeting, but at some time the board should be briefed on this work, for sake of broader community as well as trustees and faculty. Bennett: will raise this message with Chair Mazzochi. Bernstein: agrees that the BOT should be briefed. Jarman: would be pleased to present. Bennett: Is the committee in agreement? All agreed.

Status Report on Faculty Hiring for 2018-19

VP Stewart presenting. Describes chair and committee training and the timeline. Committees will have access to their pools beginning Jan 18.

Chair Bennett: refers to notes about replacement vs “new” positions (welding, interior design). BOT has adopted a new evaluation procedure regarding data to support new positions.

Prof Hazard: Last year the BOT did not approve two faculty hires. To my knowledge, there has never been an explanation. Would be helpful for hiring committees to know what the problem was, so they don’t make the same mistake again.

Chair Bennett: will take under advisement and discuss further with Stewart and Rondeau.

Review of Policy/Procedure on Assignment of Credit Hours

VP Bente presenting. New version of the policy has been available for comment; no new comments received. Expect to bring to BOT for adoption this week. New version is consistent with federal definition, applies across all sections and delivery modes.

Procedure will be to ensure that policy is uniformly applied. Policy addresses all the issues raised by the HLC. Procedure will go to Shared Governance in January and posted for internal review before it is adopted.

Chair Bennett: now we have a more comprehensive policy that conforms to federal definitions.

Committee Discussion

Chair Bennett opens to comments from the floor. No comments.

Next meeting has not been scheduled. Bennett and Millush will schedule in late Jan or early Feb 2018.

Called to order by Allan Bennett, BoT

Chuck Bernstein, Trustee, appointed as Vice Chair

Present: Donna Stewart, Bob Hazard, Cheryl Baunbach Caplin, P/T Counselor, CODAA    Earl Dowling VP Student Affairs, Sue Dreghorn, Secretary of CODAA, P/T English,  George Beck, VP SLC, Donna Stewart, Interim VP Academic Affairs, Jim Bente, Dr. Ann Rondeau, COD President.

Bennett:Here to discuss recommendations regarding academic activities. Particularly the HLC visit and accreditation. The masses have avoided this committee and there are no public comments. So we will move on to approve the Minutes of April 2017.

Dreghorn notes a typo that needs to be corrected. Seconded, approved by all but Bennet since he was not in attendance at that meeting and abstains from voting..

Review of Aug 17 2017 BoT Resolution of Committee Oversight.  Bennet notes that on Nov 22, 2017, the HLC changed COD status from Accredited on probation to Accredited, with certain conditions which we will talk about in a minute. The Resolution of Committee Oversight basically is a litany of several charges that were given to this committee. They are listed in the resolution. There are 10 charges given to this committee:

1. Meeting every other month to receive status reports from Academic Affairs.

2) Insuring that by fall 2017 faculty and academic leadership have fully addressed and resolved the issue of lack of adherence between course outcomes on ACFS in all faculty syllabi regardless of delivery

3) Ensure by end of fall 2017 term the BOT policy 25-76 on assignment of how credit hours are assigned be reviewed and approved.  All course delivery formats.

4) Audit of Spring 2018 by March 15, to address lack of adherence of course outcomes as listed in ACFS. Must be resolved.

5) May 15, COD administration prepare and submit an interim monitoring report to the HLC showing adherence by all faculty in classes of all delivery types to BoT Policy 25-76.

6) by end of spring 2019 faculty and administration give evidence that  all Career and technical programs have assessment plans that assess program learning outcomes.

7) By Sept 2019 COD administration has submitted an interim monitoring report to the HLC that shows that all career and tech programs have assessment plancs regarding learning outcomes.

8) By Spring 2019 faculty and administration have set internal targets of performance for operational areas of the college and use data to measure success in those areas.

9) Dec 2019 COD administration submit an interim monitoring report to the HLC that shows that data and metrics inform decisions  and initiatives adopted by COD and that the internal targets have been met.

10) make any further recommendations to the BOT regarding these issues.

Bennet– this is an ambitious agenda that this committee must oversee this to make sure it is met.

NEXT ITEM: Policy 25-76  Assignment of credit hours. Jim Bente takes over.  Says there is policy and procedure and there is difference between the two. HLC  Crierion  is met with concern — federal compliance of assignment of credit hours.  The policy did not ultimately address all delivery formats of courses taught by the College and Federal compliance.  Updated policy revision — Bente notes that it indicates we will award credits in accordance with Federal standards.  Federal Credit hour is a federal definition– we are not writing our own, we are adopting the federal standard of  1 semester hour is  equivalent to 50 minutes.  This was not in the original policy. This will bring us into compliance.  This is a BOT policy. It is in the policy manual.  It is in the administrative manual.  The procedure is under review by Academic Affairs.  Addresses on-line, hybrid, internships. Will spell out specifically how credit hours are awarded for each of those.  The policy itself is sufficient to meet Criterion 3A and the federal definition. And then spelling it out will make it more robust and fully in compliance.

President Rondeau calls for Donna Stewart to comment. Stewart: There are a number of pieces in place. We can provide a detailed report at the December mtng of exact actions taken. We have done an internal informal audit. The majority of our courses this fall– any out of compliance have been addressed. Faculty were contacted. We are well situated for the Spring audit.  We have started the discussion for longer-term planning and discussion for vocational and tech, and career activities. We have a two year window for reporting back. We are working with faculty partners, have an HLC taskforce of a variety of faculty and staff addressing the plan for assessment related activities. We will provide and allow ourselves time to make the changes, implement them, report them. Student learning outcomes has a different timeline.

Rondeau; we are seeing trends on the issue of assessment. It is a broad term. It has lots of stuff in it. HLC is including assessment in its criterion for accreditation. The Committee will be asking us abou thist. We should be persistent about assessment. We are in complete collaboration with faculty for academic assessment (there is also financial, etc) but academic will be done in partnership with our faculty. Donna, I have pretty much covered what I’ve asked you to do.

Stewart agrees.

Bennet -asks for any other comments on policy 3A and the syllabi.

Dreghorn: Will syllabi need to have number of credit hours?

Bente- contract with student must be on it. Course descriptions and learner outcomes must be consistent across delivery mode and no matter who is teaching. The courses must be identical and the same. Learning Outcomes and course descriptions must be in there. Putting the number of credit hours on the syllabi is recommended.

Bennet: Moving on to #10, next meeting date..

Dowling– should we take a voice vote on that?

Bennet: That would be redundant. Any action by this committee would be redundant.

Next meeting — will be a meeting of more substance. I would like to see materials turned in no later than Monday to Maryann for distribution. I’d like a status report from the Office of Academic Affairs regarding HLC 3A and 4A in preparation for the interim report due May 2018. The HLC letter of Nov 14th points out the specific items that report must have

a) description of consistent process and practice that demonstrates adherence to course descriptions and learning outcomes.

2) consistent process and practice of course regardless of delivery

3) clear description of policy for awarding credit hours  Policy 25-76 policy which we just passed takes care of this.

Listening to this conversation makes me think we should have some discussion of  trends in assessment. Jim, do we need to get any kind of  discussion of 25-76?

Jim Bente– it is currently with Academic Affairs. Their revised policy will go to the full board for the December mtng.  The BOT mtng is the 14th but we are meeting on the 11th.  We should review that item on the 11th so that we can act in our advisory capacity to the BOT and have a recommendation in for the full BOT mtng.

Addresses Donna Stewart –should we have something about assessment.

Stewart:  We will have a report ready for what we have done and will be doing for planning on the varying parts of the HLC challenges regarding assessment. Is that what you are asking?

Bennett: Each 1000 mile journey must start with one step. Let’s focus on the interim report due May 2019. That will be the priority. Then we can get into other items.

Stewart: Yes, we will be prepared for the11th.

Bennet: any other items to be added for that Dec 11th mtng?

Bente: No.

Bennet: Full status report on the document we will be submitting. What about the audit?

Bente: I will be prepared to talk about the audit process and how we will proceed. The HLC wants clear evidence that we are in compliance. It will be produced by the audit.

Bennett: Yes, I’d like some additional info on that item

Stewart: Status report on the review of plans for assessment will come from the faculty team as well. The report will come from faculty and administration.

Rondeau: regarding the next set of items from the HLC to be met — it is encouraging to have the faculty and the administration to work together. It is something we are working closely with the faculty on that. They are the experts. We will be helpful to them as they make those efforts, but properly the faculty must be the leaders on that. The reporting process of the last two years should be continued. Asks Bernstein if he wants to comment on that as he has been on that committee. Bernstein declines.

Bennett: We will get into more meaty agenda items for the next meeting. This concludes our agenda for today’s meeting. Calls for the meeting to adjourn at 2:33 pm.

moved and seconded. Meeting adjourns.

Tonight’s BOT meeting has a focus on Academic Affairs, so the discussion has direct bearing on our work as faculty. Live blogging by CODFA volunteers is intended to capture as much as possible of the substance of the event without editorial comment.  🙂

[Throughout the presentation, where no speaker is identified, the speaker is Donna Stewart.]

Academic Affairs Today

Donna Stewart, Interim VPAA. Opened with comments about the pursuit of excellence, meeting the needs of the district, increasingly diverse student population, be good stewards of fiscal resources. Increasing use of technology in all we do, continue on our path to be a culture of assessment. It’s the right thing to do to assess ourselves. Focus on student learning.

Reviewed the mission of the College. It guides our work.

Discussed reorganization of academic divisions–motivated by more efficient communication and use of resources, as well as equalizing work across varied set of units. Discipline chairs identified.

We are very diverse–no question has a single answer.

Slides listed academic degree programs and Continuing Ed programs. Photos of Mac, art galleries, and other special programs. Field Studies and Study Abroad. Emphasized tremendous breadth of opportunities, very unusual for 2-year college.

Enrollment by course type: pie chart shows large preponderance of enrollment in “transfer” disciplines, including developmental as well as transfer-level courses: 68% enrollment. Career-Tech 26%. Remaining 6% is Adult Ed / Continuing Ed.

Enrollment by delivery mode: 80% is classroom-based f2f but with growing involvement of technology. 14% is online, 5% is hybrid. Growth of online has plateaued. Need to plan forward for technology because the f2f classroom have increasing level of technology. Students expect engaging uses of technology, across all ages.

Enrollment in transfer disciplines by transfer level and developmental coursework: 88% is transfer level, 11% is developmental, 1% is dual credit.

Enrollment in Career-Tech is 90% college level and 10% dual credit. This area has grown 30% in recent years.

Slides showed balance of full-time faculty among divisions, as well as adjuncts. Continuing theme is hiring guidelines.

Chart of enrollment by disciplines with English and Math showing dramatically large enrollments. Single courses, English 1101 has the highest enrollment, followed by Psych 1100 and Speech 1100. Three entry-level math courses have high enrollments.

Mazzochi: question about FT and adjunct faculty. Was the chart based on numbers of faculty or on contact hours. Stewart: expressed in full-time equivalents based on 15 hours of teaching.

Bernstein: asked about pie chart of transfer program with 11% developmental. Has that been stable, and is it a higher or lower number than we want to see? Stewart: It is a higher number than we would want to see. Working strategically to mitigate. Focused on Math in response. Mentioned supporting math-phobic students to help them pass the first time, and to also place students more effectively thru ALEKS. Turned to Bente for figures on developmental enrollment. There has been a decrease over the past few years.

Rondeau addresses Bernstein: National issue, faculty working hard to address. Effort has been substantive. Differences of opinion about best solutions. Coordination with high schools. More work to do but high confidence that we are part of the national conversation.

Mazzochi: asked about hiring guidelines for dual credit courses, noting how much greater the offerings are in Career-Tech. Stewart: most high school teachers do not have masters degrees in subject areas that would allow them to teach dual credit. Work to do in this area.

Mazzochi: what is the resistance in the high schools to having our faculty come in and teach the classes in the high school? Stewart: they would like it, but we can’t afford to send our faculty out. Pilot was not scalable, there were logistical challenges.

Rondeau: we’re looking at this. Topic for next meeting of CC presidents in IL.

Mazzochi: asked about district high schools that have partnered with Indiana. Rondeau: dodged naming schools. Mazzochi: asked about the pilot at Glenbard. Stewart: This was Early College pilot, we were committed so we will finish the program, but it is not scalable. We paid their tuition. Mazz: what if the parents pay? Stewart: still looking at that, trying to find the right model. Best is to get students engaged with us, on our campus. Looking at scheduling and transportation. A lot of energy around Early College.

Current Enrollment and Retention Initiatives

Some of the work, not exhaustive:

• increased Continuing Ed catalog mailing, now reaching 300,000 households (7 years ago was 35,000); Continuing ed up 28%
• new programs and clinical partnerships. Very challenging to set up clinicals.
• automatic Honors eligibility for qualified high school students, eliminates extra application steps. This fall, zero cancellations of honors courses.
• Data sharing w/ K-12 district for math placement.
• Learning Communities: direct faculty collaboration w/ advisers. Record enrollment this fall in LCs.
• Accelerated Learning Program co-enrolls student in English 1101 and developmental English. Mentors the student in the transfer-level course. One-step registration. Very successful.
• Targeted outreach to Technology students by fulltime faculty members–advising tables for CIT, CIS, and OFTI in Seaton. Similar in Tech building.
• Outreach to high schools by faculty in programs such as drone technology.
• Intrusive advisement in Welding, Architecture. Intrusive advising is theme.

Future Initiatives: Humanities Festival, “See Writing Differently” Showcase, Bus-Tech Career Showcase, Celebration of Academic Excellence.

Personnel Initiatives:

• Need for AVP for Outreach and Assessment
• Director of Nursing
• Manager of Learning Technologies–pivotal to creative development of technology application in the classroom
• Manager of Innovation DuPage
• SLEA Director
• 13 Faculty Searches getting ready to post

Facilities Projects:

• Student spaces including Honors Commons, TEC Learning Commons and food service projects, Techcetera Gallery.
• New Learning Technologies suite including recording studio for faculty.
• Partnership Hall: space for academic partners such as in 2+2 programs.
• HSC Adjunct Center renovation.
• Innovation DuPage–accelerator/incubator–does not yet have space.

Continued Pursuit of Excellence

• Program Review on 5-year cycle dictated by state, but we conduct. Platform for planning for the future. Faculty are supported by Jonita Ellis and Bente for data.
• Program accreditation, such as Nursing, Automotive, etc. Slide listing over 20 programs with outside accreditation.
• Program advisory committees. Extensive listing. Most meet 2x/year.
  Rondeau: interjects positive comment about the volunteer commitment of people on the advisory committees and their engagement with faculty. Stewart replies with comment about how advisory committees interact with curriculum process.
  Rondeau: interjects anecdote about employer looking for fine arts students with stage management experience because they are so skilled.
• Student evaluation/assessment venues including portfolios and competitions. Example is Portfolio Night for paralegal program. American Culinary Federation academic competition, we always have a team that does well. Cosmetology recently competed in Skills USA and did well though it was their first time. Horticulture students also compete well. MPTV, Architecture have recently won significant awards.
• Building culture of, comfort with, assessment.
• ICCB — recognition on 5-year cycle, received strong report in June 2017.
• HLC — called Richard Jarman and Shannon Toler to podium to report on HLC
  • Jarman: difficult to quantify the relationship between students and faculty, doesn’t always boil down to data. However several disciplines are engaging in new assessments including AI methods, research into course effectiveness of Speech 1100 in reducing anxiety. HLC concerned about attention to consistency in meeting course objectives as listed in Active Course Files. Academic Affairs information campaign to bring syllabi into compliance. Response Planning Committee discussing how to push efforts forward to meet HLC requirements. Working toward audit of about 2400 syllabi.
  • Rondeau interjects: Jarman is helping to bring IR and faculty together collaboratively. Asks Bente to comment. Bente: glad to support faculty.
  • Mazzochi: who is checking the syllabi? Toler: assortment of staff, faculty coordinators. Variation among the divisions because workload varies. Some use of temps. Bente: will conduct formal internal audit in Spring with representative sampling of courses. Will send verification to HLC. Mazzochi: how does a mismatch get communicated and resolved? Toler: through the Deans. Watching for the reasons why these breakdowns might be happening.
    Several more back-and-forth comments on this from Mazz, Toler, and Stewart. Time-consuming process but will get better.
  • Toler: Continuing efforts to develop culture of assessment. Activities that will lay groundwork for continuous improvement. Revision of curriculum process, motivated by AA re-org, but opportunity to focus more clearly on learning outcomes. Faculty owns curriculum process and must vote to approve. Gen Ed outcomes are being reviewed, will be enriched by faculty involvement. Will be more careful alignment of Gen Ed outcomes with courses. Need for defining program-level outcomes and goals, including issues like retention and enrollment, driven by faculty. Using data to inform program-level decision-making.
  • Bernstein: can we create an automatic mechanism to provide the Active Course File? Toler: we’re making it easier to cut-and-paste, but not in time for spring audit.
  • Mazzochi: have we never before asked faculty to certify that their syllabus complies with ACF? Toler: we have communicated ACF information before, and the information is readily available, but we have not asked for this certification. A certification step is under discussion in the planning committee. Jarman: syllabi have been thought of as personal; HLC has been a wake-up, need to be more intentional. Mazz: checklists create more care. Worried about why this is happening. Toler: hopes to focus more on the meaning of the learning outcomes. We need a mechanism in place. McGrath: these are exactly the right questions, and the committee is using the current process to try to figure out what the right remedy is. Mazz: concerned about running out of time to fix the problem.
  • Mazz: how does assessment of learning objectives in house relate to assessment by outside accreditors? How do we make sure we are assessing what is intrinsically valuable to outside entities such as employers? Jarman: that is a whole different level of discussion than what we’ve been talking about. Mazz: if someone changes the objectives on the syllabus because they don’t think the objectives are the right ones, how do we make sure we are teaching the right things? Toler: we review those objectives every 5 years through Program Review. Mandated by ICCB. Stewart: changes to course objectives would have to go through the curriculum process. Mazz: how do you validate what the faculty believe that students should know? Where is the feedback mechanism? Does it vary by discipline? Example, English 1101, what does it mean if a student has taken English 1101? Asks McGrath to respond. McGrath: we have a new set of objectives in English 1101 to start in January, we have to assess them. Jarman: impossible to give one answer, different standards for different areas. Stewart: IAI process is essential in transfer disciplines, transfer schools evaluate our course objectives. Transfer institution provide us feedback about how our students perform. Within programs, we have strong vehicles for reviewing outcomes.

A Look Into the Future

• Based on the Strategic Long Range Plan: Goal #2, Value-added education going beyond standard expectations. Goal #3, Student Centeredness.
• Student Success/Pathways: Focus on student goals, learn more about how to use the data to guide decision making. Collaborate with Bente and team to figure out what data we need. Collaboration inside of Academic Affairs, work to serve the students based on what their goals are. Work with faculty to figure out next steps, how can we improve? Can’t do it in a vacuum. Actively partner with Student Affairs, IR, IT. Re-occurring themes are data and technology. Identify resources to support next steps.
• Our shared passion is meeting students’ needs. Will require resourcing. Asked Kirk Overstreet to share thoughts on where we’re heading with learning technology.
  • Overstreet: emerging trends in technology in higher ed. We stand on a precipice. We have made big steps in recent years. We need to be on the leading edge of providing critical digital technology. Every f2f course is technology-enhanced. Generation Z come to us technology ready, we have to catch up with them. Virtual reality, AI, gaming simulation, digital literacy.
    How will natural language processing change how students learn–they ask Siri. Have to understand how to use that. (Cut his presentation short because time running over.)

Mazzochi thanks Stewart and the AA team. Adjourn.