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QEP Meeting Minutes - 6/25/2015

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SACSCOC QUALITY ENHANCEMENT PLAN STEERING TEAM

Minutes

June 25, 2015

2:00 p.m., JBH 123 Conference Room

Attendees: Cathy Kemper-Pelle, Lakeisha Branch, Kyle Diamond, Joe Ganakos, Mark Hartley, John Elliot, Dana Byal, Nora James, Michelle Hernandez-Perez, Jodi Rodriguez

  1. Review and approval of minutes from last meeting

All day retreat was held. Minutes were emailed to all. Outcome of meeting- a lot of details ironed out on which direction QEP is going.

  1. Sub-team Reports

Apply Texas – Dr. Kemper-Pelle

  • Sharon Steele has made some minor changes with Apply Texas which will generate student data that we needed such as First Generation.

ePortfolio

  • DeDe Griffith not present. We are being gifted the Kale e-portfolio system as part of another project. Does not seem particularly user friendly. It has a different purpose. Specifically for veterans to use to take military experience and relate to college credit. May be back to Purple Briefcase or others that were discussed. Student services utilizes a different e-portfolio.
  • Decision needs to be made as pilot group will start in fall. 50 African American males will comprise this group to work the bumps out of the QEP. This gives us a year with small group to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

By our next meeting, we need to have a decision on which e-portfolio to use.

Literature Review

  • Kemper-Pelle just received a book for literature review about improvements in community college, specifically college and career readiness. Any journals or supporting evidence is important. It should be easy to document why we are addressing these issues. Everyone needs to post documentation to Blackboard site for reference to support what we are doing.

Faculty-Student-Advisor Relationships

  • Attended League for Innovations Learning Summit in Phoenix, AZ. Working summit for team with breakout sessions. Two other colleges were doing something similar to our QEP. Received pretty good models, assessment practices, case methods similar to what we are doing.
  • Technology “light board” was discussed. Can be used for video lecturing. Image projected onto screen, markups directly on image. This is open source- no proprietary equipment. Vera Walker has applied for mini-grant. Good tool for video presentation for hybrid and online courses as well. Discussed what would be needed; screen, video camera, room, lighting, curtain. Need to consider lighting, technical logistics, specs. JBH 124 was discussed as location. Try to identify a home. Include Leann in loop.

LSSS/EDUC – Dr. Kemper-Pelle

  • Training on Thursday, July 9 Civitas Inspire for all counselors, advisors, and any interested faculty advisors. This is the product we purchased from Civitas that gives us predictive analytics on students and tells us what their risk factors are. Allows us to monitor at risk students and intervene early. Looks at a variety of characteristics including past academic history, GPA, number of courses dropped, how many hours they are working a week. 30 different factors addressed including, first generation, first time in college, what kind of support factor they have, work status. Runs algorithm and tells you what risk factors are. Instructors can also factor in mid-term grades so advisor or faculty member can step in. Accessible 24/7 on or off campus. Visually, very easy to read. How to sit with student and discuss risk factors without awkwardness. Tool for reaching out to student- not foolproof –simply indicators. What we can’t measure is resilience. Reports indicate a letter grade improvement in student performance from mentoring they are receiving.

Data, Visuals and Assessment – Michelle Hernandez-Perez – nothing to report now.

  1. QEP Director Job Description
  • Hiring committee in place. There will be 2 rounds of interviews. What kind of questions do we want to have? Writing sample? Demonstration of an ability to analyze data? Need suggestions on what we are trying to get from applicants.

Discussed:

  • Very good communication skills – be able to read data, analyze it.
  • There is an external evaluator – who is in an advisory capacity only.
  • Potential writing sample? Dana will send suggestions.
  • Good leadership skills – can they team-build?
  • Will have a half-time secretary. Michael’s secretary will be half on the QEP.
  • Stakeholder management- grass roots recruitment of supporters. People who can liaise effectively with community, schools, industry
  • Will position be filled by time of QEP conference? No. Can’t get to board approval fast enough.
  • Has this person worked with accreditation before and have some sense of what’s involved.
  • Any other ideas? Yes- writing sample. Yes, data analysis and presentation. Looking at this plan, what do you see as the biggest hurdle in implementing this plan. Will have to take place same day as interview. A lot of writing and reporting.
  • Example of how to develop a partnership. Describe a project when you’ve assembled a diverse team through the implementation of or creation of a final project.
  • Faculty background because of huge faculty component.
  • Can you ask for portfolio? No HR restriction. Presentations, publications, final reports, etc. Have to have been the main author.
  • Any data they could share with us? Ideas? Hard to attribute it to themselves.
  • How much do they know about Lee College – willingness to participate as an LSS instructor.
  • Strengths and weaknesses? Standard, generic questions do reveal a lot of good information.
  • Does applicant have questions for the committee? If not, that’s a red flag.
  • Allow enough time in Q&A to allow follow-up questions. 8 or 9 questions allows for follow-up – more than that, becomes difficult.
  • List the top 3 qualities that you possess that make you the top candidate for this position.
  • Provide packet of information and let them demonstrate. We could ask to do a presentation on some of the basics/value of spending tax payer dollars on high impact practices. Limit slideshow presentation. Ask them to defend the concept of the QEP.
  1. Planning

WRITING

  • As we move into writing mode and what will be required, examples of QEPs passed out by Dr. Kemper. Collin College very similar to ours. Theirs is more of a first year experience. We have to be careful to relate that we are doing a two year plan, 1st and 2nd year plan – most of the first year is already in place. Trying to create a program where we tie students purposefully to these things that we already have; Honors, Service Learning, undergraduate research, etc. Important to make that clear to SACSCOC that the “new” part of this is that we have found a way to link all this together so the student has a systematic way of going through the college experience and finding their pathway.
  • Examples are similar and different. Collins Actions to be Implemented include something very important to think about: redesigning our website. We have to be able to break our QEP into actions as they did.
  • Paris Jr. College doesn’t say much about what they did. Straight from SACSCOC. Took list from SACSCOC and made it their table of contents. Collin made theirs more desirable to read by subheadings.
  • South University. They have created subheadings that help. They have an organizational structure written that is not in the others.. Purposefully in their assessment plan have their 1st year retention rates; current and expected targets. What do we want in our table of contents? If we can flush that out and what we want to emphasize in our writing – that’s the first step in our writing. Let’s structurally organize what our proposal will look like within the constraints that SACSCOC has given us. What are the strengths we need to emphasize to help work up our table of contents? From there, develop outlines. By the time the QEP director starts, we need to have the outlines in place. We want to hand them a document that they can spend time poring over, asking questions, and understanding. Will need help writing and input – will be jointly writing but they will take lead.

BUDGET

  • If you know something is going to cost- we need to know how much things are going to cost. As we do outlines, we need to ask how much will it cost, how are we going to support? QEP director must have computer and office supplies, resources, training, SACSCOC conference in December. Detailed budget.
  • Should by next meeting have a marketing director. Once start date is known, they will be part of meeting. Roll out of marketing plan will be in August – professional development day. Will have to be part of PDD, on website, Breakout sessions in PDD, flat screens on campus. Elevator speech.
  • Who is going to QEP conference at end of July? Dr. Kemper-Pelle and Dr. Hernandez, Dr. Brown, Dean Zuniga, Dean Childress. Dr. Fleming and Dr. Willis on waiting list. Winter conference in December is in Houston. We need a good turnout since we don’t have to do accommodations. Winter conference focuses more on reaffirmation and the QEP. Summer is primarily focused on QEP.
  1. Next Meeting – Thursday, July 9 possibly based on Civitas training ending. 3:00 p.m.