2005 HLC Self-Study Steering Committee
Review of June 16, 2005 Meeting

Members present: Jim Baker, Barbara Bushman, Bill Cheek, Frank Einhellig, Sue George, Tammy Jahnke, Martha Kirker, Etta Madden, Vic Matthews, Pete Richardson, Don Simpson, and GA Linda Rogers.

The steering committee met at 9:00 a.m., Thursday, June 16 in the Academic Development Center.

The committee discussed how to use the list of accredited programs at Missouri State University. The large number of programs that are accredited at the university is a strength that can fit into the section on the learning-focused organization section as well as the sections on the connected and future-oriented organization.

The Missouri State University Fact Book is available online as well as in printed form, and will provide the required information for the institutional profile portion of the report.

The committee next took up Chapter 6 and began a discussion of strengths and weaknesses. Several members have already sent Etta their written comments, and a few have started formulating their suggestions for improvement. She has been working to incorporate these comments into the draft.

A discussion of diversity concerns then followed. While an appreciation for diversity exists on campus, its implementation as reflected by population numbers is still not as high as we would like. Three areas of diversity were discussed: diversity theory; hands-on integration into the curriculum and the classroom; and follow-up into the real world. The committee will use these discussions on diversity to formulate a recommendation for the self-study report. Bill passed out an article from the AAG newsletter which can serve as some background information to the diversity discussion.

On Monday, Bill will present a report on the HLC self-study to a meeting of the deans. He would like to have a solid list of strengths and concerns. Etta requested that committee members submit their lists of these to her, so that she could compile them for Bill. In the mean time, members should be starting to formulate recommendations. Each chapter will have a list of these, but in addition, at the end of the report, the individual bits from each chapter will be incorporated into a few (3 or 4), overarching, big-picture recommendations.

Etta will send out the latest revision to the draft before next week’s meeting, which will be held at 9:00 a.m., Thursday, June 23rd at the ADC office.