ANNUAL REPORT 2014-2015

SCHOOL OF CONTINUING AND PREOFESSIONAL STUDIES LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

Table of Contents 2014-2015 a year of growth for SCPS ........................................................................................................... 2

New faculty and staff, new roles .............................................................................................................. 2

Growth ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

Implementing new courses and programs: .............................................................................................. 3

New common experience for degree completion students ................................................................. 4

Implementing new paralegal programs ................................................................................................ 4

Outreach ................................................................................................................................................... 5

Centennial ................................................................................................................................................. 5

Student and alumni awards ...................................................................................................................... 6

Strengthen services to students ............................................................................................................... 6

Quality and growth ................................................................................................................................... 7

Affordable ................................................................................................................................................. 8

Marketing: ................................................................................................................................................. 9

Academic collaborations ........................................................................................................................... 9

Technology ................................................................................................................................................ 9

Admissions .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Completions ............................................................................................................................................ 10

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

2014-2015 a year of growth for SCPS Our ambition in SCPS is to be the best adult learning program in which to study, to teach, and to work.

We want:

Highly satisfied students who graduate

Highly motivated and well-qualified faculty

Staff and colleagues who are dedicated to the success of our students and faculty

We want for our graduates the continued legacy of our first 100 years. Our graduates say Loyola helped

them to lead, succeed, and create meaning. This comes from these ambitions for our graduates.

There are many to thank for the progress we have made toward these aims.

New faculty and staff, new roles Dr. Amy Jordan joined our faculty in July 2014 as our Director for Special Projects and has helped us

improve our outreach and support for new students and develop new programs and courses. Dina

Carr’s work as our Director of Partnerships has ranged far and wide with developing relationships with

corporations (helping us ink a partnership with the computer supplier CDW) and community colleges,

leading implementation of our new SCPS Fellows program, and playing a vital role in our launch of

courses in Vernon Hills. Graduate Assistant Palak Shukla has enhanced our communication efforts with

video projects and a refined social media and web presence. Kelly Barry took on a new role this year as

our Instructional Designer and has provided great support to faculty to enhance the quality of our

online, blended, and face-to-face offerings. Marie Harrigan joined our faculty as the Assistant Director

of the Institute for Paralegal Studies (IPS) and continues her excellent teaching record first established as

Focus on quality and on liberal education

Positive career

outcomes

An open mind

Critical thinking

An empathic

heart

Ethical decision-making

Deep reflection on their place in

the world

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

a long-time adjunct faculty member in IPS; she also advises paralegal students on career issues.

Assistant Dean Natasha Teetsov has jumped in to make a big difference in improving services to our

students, streamlining entry, advising, and scholarship processes. Jennifer Gettings has moved into a

new role as our Enrollment Advisor and has significantly improved our enrollment from admitted

students while building our support for transfer students. Elizabeth Morrison has replaced Jennifer as

the Administrative Assistant for IPS, serving paralegal faculty, students, and graduates.

Growth We have had a remarkable year of growth for our other SCPS programs. Credits from SCPS degree

seeking students increased by 44% over the prior academic year.1 Our administrative assistant Nancy

Argudo has capably adjusted our processes to encompass this growth smoothly throughout our

operations.

The BA in Paralegal Studies accepted its first students in Fall 2014 and has been attracting a lot of

attention. We have not been as successful in our efforts to grow the paralegal post-baccalaureate

certificate program; enrollment in paralegal programs appears to be declining nationally, possibly due to

the mistaken impression that the scarcity of jobs for lawyers applies to non-lawyer positions too, when

the contrary is true. We are hopeful that a re-sharpened message and improved marketing will draw

more students to this well-regarded program as we have more employers seeking our paralegal

graduates than we have graduates of the program. We know from a study conducted by our

Institutional Research office led by Rick Hurst that the graduates of the paralegal program have been

experiencing an average 35% increase in income in the year after completion. We are hopeful we can

return to growth in this program with these clearer themes: hot jobs, good outcomes, only one year to

complete, reasonable tuition, and a respected program.

Implementing new courses and programs: We have completed our first full year with our new entry course

sequence in place. The results have been striking. The first course

(CPST 200 Introduction to Degree Completion) has given students

a great start and has supported much greater persistence. Here

you can watch a short video of student perspectives. This course

has been developed by Dr. Amy Jordan and Mike Rydel with help

from colleagues in financial aid (Nicole Mazzella), bursar, career

services (Brigette Petersen), and the library (Kristina Schwoebel).

Dom Merritt and Natasha Teetsov are adding their touches to

this course as we add sections.

Our early work with these students on clarifying their career and vocation goals starts in the course CPST

201 Professional Identity and Development, which has been ably led by Jan Shurtz. This in turn has

11 Overall registration was up by 12%. We experienced a 6% decline in enrollments in online general education courses from the

RN-BSN program, due primarily to the cycle of courses within that program. Due to greater availability of summer online

courses from Arts and Sciences, enrollment from other undergraduates at LUC was down by 38% compared to the previous

year.

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

helped us to move forward with a new partnership with the Quinlan School of Business to improve the

pathway to the MBA and to generate a new certificate in non-profit and church leadership and another

in small business development. This Fall we offer our first section of the new capstone course. This

course is an Engaged Learning course, required of all SCPS graduates. The following graphic illustrates

the design we’ve put in place to help our students to be intentional about their career success, in part by

embedding prior learning reflection and a professional portfolio into the curriculum.

New common experience for degree completion students

Three years: Lead, succeed, create meaning

First semester

• Introduction to degree completion

Second semester

• Professional identity and development

Final semester

Capstone

Implementing new paralegal programs Jean Ryan, Director of the Institute for Paralegal Studies, has devoted considerable time this year to

gaining ABA approval of our new certificate and degree programs. We fully implemented the litigation,

corporate, and combined post-baccalaureate certificate programs and launched the major in Paralegal

Studies, designed to provide a degree completion program for those coming to Loyola from a

community college paralegal program. The directors of these associate degree programs have

responded enthusiastically to our outreach efforts, and several formal articulation agreements are in

progress.

Reflect• Reflect on prior learning

Build• Add K/S/E to portfolio

Present

• Present portfolio in capstone

Ready

• Ready for next step in career or grad school

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

Outreach This has been a busy first year for us in our outreach

activities. Dina Carr has been very important in

getting doors opened in the area around our Vernon

Hills campus at the Cuneo Mansion. We launched our

first group of courses at Cuneo, and we are

continuing our marketing and outreach activities.

UMC and GPEM have provided good support, as well,

and we are seeing a small but steady uptick in new

students for this location.

We’ve been working with Brian Schmisek and Mark

Bersano of the Institute of Pastoral Studies on

strengthening parish leadership and working to provide an articulation of Diocesan training to our

degree programs. We have been experimenting with providing speakers as a way of expanding our

outreach. One successful example of this was at St. Procopius in which our Senior Adjunct Lecturer

Kevin O’Connor provided a well-received Lector training to approximately 50 attendees. We are

continuing corporate outreach with meetings, events, corporate college fairs, and dedicated webpages

to support new partnerships with CDW and others. We have built this through new mailings and print

pieces targeted to HR departments at select corporations.

To help build our majors in Criminal Justice and Information Technology, we have recruited advisory

groups from the profession, with leaders selected by key faculty from those departments. Computer

Science faculty leaders Konstantin Läufer and Bob Yacobellis have been working with Dina Carr, our CIO

Susan Malisch, and our Political Science colleague John Frendreis to expand our reach within the IT

industry in Chicago through the formation of a new advisory council, which will meet for the first time in

early September. Criminal Justice faculty members Mickey Lombardo and Jona Goldschmidt have

worked with Dina to recruit a top-notch group of leaders from the profession. Our first meeting of this

council was in March 2015, and we heard about needs of the criminal justice employers. We will meet

again in September to consider some changes in the SCPS curriculum that arise from those discussions.

Centennial The Centennial celebration provided a great opportunity to connect 90 faculty, alumni, current and

former staff, and current students. Kelly

Barry provided fabulous leadership to this

long project. Senior Adjunct Lecturer Kevin

O’Connor aptly emceed our panels of

alumni, including Carmen Velasquez,

Renee Guider-Selmon, Brian Johnson,

Patti McCanna and others who reflected

on their experiences at Loyola. We were

joined by our former dean, Dr. Stephen

Freedman, who currently serves as Provost

of Fordham University. In the days leading

up to the centennial event, Patty Sheehy

collected stories from our memorable

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

alumni about their Loyola Experience and posted them to our various social media sites.

Commemorative picture frames with the centennial logo were distributed to all attendees. Participants

were filmed in the fashion of the StoryCorps franchise and later edited into a promotional video which is

posted to our website. In the days after the event, Palak Shukla assembled a commemorative photo

booklet which was sent to all participants and continues to be used as promotional material. Video

available here

Student and alumni awards

In November we honored Rosalin Walcott with the President’s Medallion for

her stellar record in our Paralegal Studies program and for her depth of

involvement on behalf of children and families in Chicago.

In October, the Loyola chapter of Alpha Sigma Nu,

the Jesuit honor society, inducted SCPS students

Faye Chambers, Wendy Johnson, Amber Moore,

and Barbara Thomas for their demonstration of

Jesuit values and stellar academic performance.

In June, we presented the Damen award to alumnus Steve J. Bernas for his record

of service to Chicago as the leader of the Better Business Bureau.

We also inducted 24 paralegal students and alumni

into LEX, the national paralegal honor society. This

year’s inductees were Phyllis Ally, Brenda Ayala,

Matthew Borkowski, Eleanor Brown, Tetman

Callis, Adriana Cesario, Leah Gannaway, Lauren Gilroy, Jessica Hamm,

Steven Herbst, David Hullinger, Joshua Isaacs, Gizelle Jancovic, Janice

Kwiatkowski, Sinead McCarron, Judith Northey, Elye Olson, Bryan-

Andrew Roche, Jillian Rule, Thomas Stella, Natalie Stiles, Rosalin

Walcott, Gloriana Woo, and Jennifer Zhang.

Strengthen services to students Our goal is to provide the premiere undergraduate experience for the adult students. We hired Amy

Jordan, Natasha Teetsov, Jennifer Gettings, and Marie Harrigan in order to make that happen. In this

year, we have begun to expand the use of prior learning assessment, building on our partnership with

Learning Counts. We have completed a plan to graduation for all of our students and are working with

our colleagues in Registration & Records to load some of that guidance in LOCUS. Our colleagues in

Registration & Records have also been very helpful as we have implemented a number of new programs

and refined our processes for the use of transfer and non-traditional credit. Clare Korinek, Kris Daggett,

Shannon Levi, Linda Wejs and Diane Hullinger are consummate professionals. We have streamlined the

scholarship award process with Ed Moore so that students can count on an annual award to help them

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

meet expenses and no longer have to re-apply each semester. We have implemented a much closer

partnership with Financial Aid and Bursar to improve services and help students who are facing financial

challenges. Career services is now integrated into the first two courses so that students no longer wait

until the end to develop their career plan. We have expanded the network of law firms and corporate

law offices seeking our paralegal graduates. We ask the students at the end of each term to reflect on

what they have learned and determine what evidence of knowledge and skills they might add to their

professional portfolio.

Quality and growth Our path to growth starts by focusing on the quality of our applied programs. We have deepened our

quality efforts by more deliberate approaches to adjunct faculty, led by Associate Dean Jeanne Widen

and supported by Instructional Designer Kelly Barry. We’ve implemented a new award for Excellence in

Adult Learning. This year’s

awardees were Mike Rydell

and Lisa Tamburini. We’ve

improved our hiring and

training processes. For each

new faculty member, we’ve

assigned a senior faculty

member to help each

understand the Loyola

approach and observe his or

her course. We are thankful

for Kevin O’Connor, Char

Wenc, Eva Mika, and Greg

Hamill for their role as

mentors. We have

developed and applied a

rubric for teaching effectiveness and provide a new faculty orientation and regular professional

development programs for faculty. Our online courses are jointly developed now with an instructional

designer and faculty are compensated for contribution to course development. Each course now

matches to a course quality rubric and an overall consistent, yet flexible, template. All senior adjunct

faculty now go through a review and promotion process, resulting in a higher rank and access to a

regular allowance for professional development. Degree program faculty who’ve been promoted to

Senior Lecturer this year include Greg Hamill, David Madalinski, Cyndi Maxey, Patty McNally, Kevin

O’Connor, Mike Rydel, Tracy Scott, Marilyn Stocker, Matt Thibeau, and Char Wenc. Paralegal faculty

receiving this designation were Kelly Barry, Enid Kempe, Beth Novy, and Joan Stevens.

We overhauled our faculty handbook to include not only procedural information, but suggestions on

best practices as well. We have begun scheduling regular student focus groups to collect data about our

online courses. Our IDEA results show impressively high student satisfaction, even in comparison with

other undergraduate programs at Loyola, and especially with the application-oriented approach in our

courses.

Growth

Quality programs

Effective promotion

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

Affordable We have been working hard on making our program more affordable. These efforts have included

expanding access to state and Federal grant aid, making effective use of our funded scholarships,

building our new SCPS Fellows program, and working with students to make effective use of their prior

learning.

One of the most important innovations this year was the implementation of our full scholarship for CPST

200, which is the required first course in all of our degree programs. This new program has had a

remarkable effect on persistence, dramatically increasing the number of new students who continue

beyond their first term. This new approach has drawn interest from other adult learning programs.

Our colleagues in advancement (Dale Blanchett and William Myatt) have produced results with a newly

funded scholarship for beginning students to help those who miss out on MAP funding deadlines. This

scholarship is named after our alumna Marie Ginther.

Nicole Mazzella’s role as the Financial Aid Liaison for SCPS has been highly beneficial. Having an

identified person for students to connect with if they have questions outside of the norm has proven

very popular with the students and most useful to the staff. Nicole has also provided us with a narrated

presentation which is being incorporated into our online Orientation Site in Sakai as well as to our CPST

200 course.

We are excited to have our first SCPS Fellows who

began their studies in June. This innovative scholarship

program strengthens partnerships with employers who

nominate rising stars and provide partial tuition

support. Loyola then matches that support for those

who are accepted as Fellows. Companies large and

small have adopted this program: Abrasive-Form, ACCO

Brands, Allstate, Anderson Engineering, Cambridge

Title, Catalina Marketing, CTCA, CVS, Discovery Health

Partners, First Eagle Bank, NES Rentals, PACCAR, Qnity, Rotella Capital Management, and Standard

Equipment. This program has also attracted a bit of attention from across the profession. Dina Carr has

worked closely with our colleagues in Financial Aid and Bursar to make this happen. Natasha Teetsov

and Jennifer Gettings have played a crucial role in conducting interviews with Fellows nominees to

explain the program and determine their eligibility.

One of the most effective ways to reduce the cost of the degree is to make use of transfer credits and

prior learning assessment (PLA). We are seeing more SCPS students taking up PLA and bringing military

and CLEP credits in order to save time and money in completing their degree. We have had good results

in making more effective use of transfer and military credits due to the cooperation of our colleagues in

Registration and Records. Assistant Dean Natasha Teetsov has gone a long way in a short time toward

improving transfer evaluation processes. Dr. Amy Jordan serves as our PLA coordinator and has

provided helpful guidance to students exploring this process. Anita Lumpkin, our colleague from

Military Veteran Student Services, has proven a solid ally.

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

Marketing: UMC colleagues have spent a lot of time with us in our marketing efforts, with new TV spots, outdoor

campaigns, and radio ads. We’re grateful to Katie Hession for her support. Sujata Nadkarni has been

especially helpful in improving our publications this year.

We’ve been graced by Heather Eidson’s expertise and the good work

of Jim Collins and his Rambler Production team.

Students who have cooperated in our video and marketing efforts

this year include Robin May McMorris, Helen Lewis, Chanel Smith,

Peggy Brooks, LeRoy Chalmers, Jessie Goodman, Xavier Armanno,

Anne Cooney, Shannon Cervantes, Jessica Peterson, and Faye

Chambers.

Faculty members Mike Rydell, Amy Jordan and Ramiza Vulic have

graciously appeared in a number of our video projects this year.

Our much-improved website has been the object of constant efforts

by Patrick Kelly and Brittany Davidson from UMC as well as our staff

Patty Sheehy and Palak Shukla.

Academic collaborations Our colleagues in the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (Vicki Keough, Monique Ridosh, Stacey Zurek)

have been wonderful collaborators in delivering the online RN-BSN program. We are excited to add a

new certificate program in alliance with them for healthcare systems administration. Interim Dean

Susan Grossman and BSW Director Jean Sokolec from the School of Social Work have been instrumental

in our anticipated launch of the BSW as an evening major. We have developed a new model and

template for transfer guides and have a working partnership with Oakton Community College, Harper

Community College, and College of Lake County producing web-based transfer guides. We’ve similar

projects underway with the City Colleges of Chicago. Natasha Teetsov, Dina Carr and Jennifer Gettings

have been instrumental in these efforts.

Technology Our colleagues in Academic Technology Services (Bruce Montes and Tim Walker) have worked over the

last year to help us better integrate our quality and student support initiatives in our learning

management system Sakai. Jeanne Widen and Kelly Barry have worked with Bruce and Tim on

developing and piloting the new Sakai user roles of Faculty Mentor and Instructional Designer. This

quartet has also been working with vendor Longsight on creating a non-activity reporting tool in Sakai

for alerts to be sent to the instructor, advisor, and others when a student has not participated in an

online course. And finally, this group has been looking at big data from Longsight in an effort to

determine how analytic reports could be used to improve student services, student retention, and the

overall student experience.

The hallmarks of a Loyola SCPS education: Lead. Succeed. Create Meaning.

Admissions Our colleagues in the Adult and Transfer Center (Jill Schur, Kia Bullock, and Mike Usher) have been

working with us to improve communication and building the effectiveness of our admissions and

enrollment process. With roughly the same number of inquiries as last year, we’ve improved the share

of inquirers who apply and doubled the number of newly admitted students who register for classes.

Completions We’re glad to report that we’ve a very good record for completions. On average, 3 of 4 adult students

who come to SCPS to finish their degree do so. 4 of 5 who come for the paralegal certificate finish their

program with us. This exceeds Loyola’s very good record of graduating 65% of the freshman class after 4

years.

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SCPS new degree students enrolled