2005 HLC Self-Study Steering Committee
Review of January 20, 2005 Meeting

Members Present: Jim Baker, Barbara Bushman, John Catau, Bill Cheek, Tom Dicke, Sue George, Tammy Jahnke, Martha Kirker, Etta Madden, Victor Matthews, Pete Richardson, Roger Sell, Don Simpson, and GA Linda Rogers.

The steering committee met at 9:30 a.m., Thursday, January 20^th at the ADC Office.

The committee’s "homework assignment" from the previous meeting was to read the reports from the College of Humanities and Public Affairs, to look for examples of evidence that might begin to emerge, and to summarize those findings by the January 27^th meeting. Today’s meeting was held to discuss progress and address questions that are arising as the reports are being read. Bill asked members to share their initial thoughts and general impressions on the process.

The conversation on initial impressions was wide-ranging and generally positive. The overall consensus is that there will be a wealth of examples to draw on for the final report. As that final report will be relatively short – 100 pages at the maximum – it will be designed to give the HLC team as easy a job as possible. Examples will have to be selected carefully; in some cases we will use specific examples, and at other times we will report patterns or trends as supported by a list of examples that will be hyperlinked for reference.

The committee as a whole was impressed by how conscientiously the many people involved in creating the reports took the matter, taking a great deal of time to produce high quality answers to the charges. At the upcoming AAA meeting, Bill will acknowledge this fact and thank all those who were involved. Jim pointed out that there is a wealth of information and knowledge contained in the reports that hold value above and beyond the HLC accreditation. The possibility was raised that the reports be maintained in a collection to remain available as a resource library for the University.

Martha asked for the committee’s impressions on how the reports handled the issue of assessment. This is an area that some thought was the weakest area overall in the individual reports, with most of them focusing on the issue of "what is happening in the area of assessment" without carrying that forward into how this information will be used to effect change. Though both this failure to "close the loops" on assessment as well as the tendency to focus on assessing teacher performance rather than student learning were perceived by the committee as being weaknesses, there were certainly some good examples in the reports as well. Bill pointed out that the final report will reflect the many improvements that have been made in this area since the 1995 site visit, and will be able to portray the University as being engaged in a continual process of improving and advancing its assessment programs.

Questions arose as to how the final report will be organized – whether the information will be arranged by the charges or by themes. The final report will probably follow the thematic approach as described in Chapter Three of the HLC Handbook. Those themes (separate from the Missouri State University themes) can be viewed as four chapters of the final report with information cross-referenced when there is overlap. The issues of diversity and assessment, for example, will both fall under more than one theme. A brief discussion followed on how to best reflect the issue of diversity at the University.

For the immediate job at hand - reviewing and summarizing the individual reports - Bill suggested concentrating on the criteria and core components to establish proof that these are being met. A thematic summary of those patterns of evidence will come as the final report is being outlined. He advised the committee to look for areas of concerns as well as areas of achievement as a good self-evaluation reflects both. It will be far better for us to acknowledge our concerns than for the HLC team discover them.

Bill asked the committee to finish reading the reports from the College of Humanities and Public Affairs, to read the General Education report, and come prepared with some specific examples of patterns of evidence at next week’s meeting. At that meeting the committee will be divided into groups and assignments will be made for the remaining reports.

The next meeting will be 9:30 a.m., Thursday, January 27 at the ADC office.

Respectfully submitted,
Linda Chadwick-Rogers