FACULTY SENATE12/5/14-McTarnaghan

Academic Policy Development

Mission and Strategic Plan

• Assessment of Goals and Objectives• Who Are and Should be Our Clients?• Balance in Teaching/Research/Service• Effectiveness and Efficiency in our Resources

How to Best Serve Students

• Development of Enrollment Plan• Work with Feeder Institutions• Establish Reasonable Admission Standards• Support Face to Face and On-Line Delivery

Systems• Serve full and part-time students• Time in Place and Competency Assessment

Focus on “Hot Button” State Policies

• Time to Degree:

• Many states pressure schools to show improvement in 4 and 6 yr. graduation rates

• This relates to full-time undergraduates• Has there been pressure to avoid serving part-

time and adult citizens?

Time to Degree (cont’d)

• Summer Board of Governors mtg. critical of FGCU’s record

• BOG’s belief expressed that FGCU’s admission standards too weak

• BOG expressed policy was to lower enrollment plan, forcing higher admission standards, thus improving time to degree

• BOG staff requested FGCU to submit revised enrollment plan-it was done

Excess Credit Hours

• Another measurement by state, originally focused on 120 unit max for BA/BS degrees

• One hypothesis holds that changing majors, thus adding credits to degree, is inefficient

• Another hypothesis holds that penalizing universities for excess credits will force compliance with the 120 unit goal

• These “productivity” measures limit student exploration of courses in the college experience

Institutional Policy Questions

• Are our admissions standards too weak?• Are we doing a proper job advising and

scheduling our full-time students?• What should our philosophy be with respect

to an enrollment plan serving both full-time and part-time students?

• How can we best use our resources in serving on-campus and off-campus students?

Look at Some Present Policies

• What is the rationale for advising first term freshmen to limit enrollment to 12 credits?

• If we know some lower division students can’t register for courses in sequence, why don’t we consider a student demand schedule based upon data driven from pre-registration?

• What support is given, or rewards, that enable students to accelerate, take competency exams, graduate in three years?

• Do we permit programs that exceed 120 credits?

What Can We Do-Internally?

• Build academic schedule via Pre-Registration• Avoid advising all but weakest freshmen to

limit of 12 credits• Encourage brightest students to accelerate• Use Academic Common Market-Southern

Regional Education Board-www.sreb.org

Whose Responsibility-Part-Time Students

• Consider FGCU’s original mission:• “Part time students are the fastest growing

population in higher education, comprising nearly half of all students enrolled. Between 1970 and 1991 in the United States, part-time enrollments increased by 122% compared with 38% for full-time enrollments. To accommodate this growing population, the University will offer a Weekend College Program in selected degree programs.”

Part-Time (cont’d)

• At the time FGCU opened, it was estimated that using both on-campus and on-line delivery, the academically qualified part-time potential statewide unserved student population exceeded 500,000.

• At that time, the existing 9 SUS universities produced over 90% of their credit hours in a Monday-Thursday schedule

Part-Time (Cont’d)

• What has happened in the BOG enrollment planning to accommodate P.T. students?

• What happened at FGCU to move away from serving P.T. students, and to emulate the 4-day academic schedule which was the norm for the other state universities?

• Shouldn’t the taxpaying citizens, working M-F, desiring to continue improving skills, be considered co-participants with 18-24 year olds who wish to attend full-time in building an enrollment plan?

What is the State’s Vision?

• With respect to enrollment growth, we observe pressure from the Governor, also expressed via the BOG, to restrict building projects which would be self-funding via bond issues.

• We observe the BOG using the hammer of Time-to-Degree and Excess Credit Hours, forcing downward revisions of our enrollment plan.

• Do these actions reflect an appreciation of student interests, application demand, employers seeking in-service options for workers?

Vision (Cont’d)• Any cost-benefit analysis would show that to increase medical school

graduates by 100, or 400, it is infinitely less expensive to add spaces in an existing school than to start a new medical school.

• Many similar examples, demonstrate that political power, rather than rational distribution of educational resources, is becoming the order of the day.

• The new constitutional board was to moderate political influence in university decisions, yet, recent appointments to BOG have come with commitments to the Governor to limit building programs, enrollment growth, etc.

• Several recent university presidential appointments have been to former political leaders. As some long-term financial supporters of the party in power have told me, “our team won the election, and we deserve the top positions in the university system.”

My Request to Senate

• Pick a few of the really important educational policy issues-debate them openly-bring them to the Board of Trustees and let the light of the press shine upon them

• Don’t let the “top-down” student scheduling scenario contribute to student inability to get proper courses on time.

• Don’t let state political leadership focus on limiting student access via enrollment plan squeeze, and hurt future generations of citizens.