I. PRELIMINARIES

A. Attending: Sharolyn Belzer, Barbara Bain, Chris Dobson, Patricia Dean, Catherine Knicki, Sadip Das, Philip Nitse, Joseph Kruger, Ken Bosworth

Visitors: Alan Egger, Terry Lay, Sarah Bowman, Kim Colling

Excused: Nancy Devine, Macella Enos, Jennifer Fisher, Victor Hjelm, John Jones, Robert Pehrsson, Hailey Price, Richard Wabrek

II. BUSINESS

Item #1: Approval of minutes for October 1, 1999
Item deferred until December 5, 1999.

Item #2: Welcome of New Member
Welcome Patricia Dean from Anthropology.

Item # 3: Assessment Policy
Concerns and Points for Discussion

John Kjinski forwarded an e-mail to the committee that said the new assessment process will be very time consuming. It needs to allow for more flexibility for departments that have a lot of programs.

Patricia Dean- Faculty members are tired of evaluating their programs with no feedback. They also feel that the administration is implying that faculty and departments are incompetent to assess their own programs. Faculty members want to know why we doing this and what it will give back to them.

Alan Egger- In 1988, the State Board of Education mandated that ISU assess all of its programs. Also, the Northwest Accreditation standards say that all programs need to be evaluated. He also stated that because the requirements are becoming more detailed and more restrictive, the assessment process has to be formatted around these requirements. Also, uniformity is required to have a good assessment. Faculty Senate has a block of time with Dr. Kepler and maybe one of the questions they should ask is why is assessment important to accreditation.

3 Things to Assess - Student Performance
                                 Faculty Members
                                 Program
Barbara Bain - The assessment manual is to be used as a resource guide and to make a standardized procedure for assessment. Institutional Research is trying to make the assessment process more simple not more difficult. Institutional Research has received assessment reports anywhere from 1 paragraph to 150 pages in length. The new assessment procedure requires only a 4-5 page report.

Patricia Dean - As expected, there has been much resistant at the faculty level.

Joseph Kruger - Reported that he received a lot of verbal and written feedback from departments. Everyone is already working hard, will released time be available for assessment coordinators? Where do the data to do this assessment come from and who is responsible for getting this? The departments have also said that they feel that they never get any feedback after they go through all of this work. Is there something that can be done about this?

Patricia Dean - Why should departments that already do a good job of assessment be required to do 2 different types of assessment? This, they say, just creates more busy work. Is there a way to look at individual programs to see if some don't have to do this by evaluating each program assessment process and to see if the program is achieving its goals?

Sharolyn Belzer - We need to ask Dr. Lawson if money is available for released time for the program coordinators. We also needs to ask John Jones what type of data he is willing to provide.

Patricia Dean - What punishment has been handed down for those who don't comply? This just seems like another faculty activity survey to a lot of people.

Barbara Bain - With the new set of guidelines, there is time for each one to be reviewed. If a program submits new data, they need to relate to the goals.

Sharolyn Belzer - Assessment is what you make it and is more for the students. The assessment manual doesn't really put restrictions on what you choose to assess.

MSC to ask Jonathan Lawson and John Jones to meet with the Council to re-visit this agenda item. Sharolyn will see when the meeting can occur. Concerns raised in this council meeting will be passed on the Drs. Lawson and Jones. The Council members will have the opportunity to ask questions. (A meeting was held on November 12,1999.)

Item # 4: Task Force

The Task force may be visiting some schools in Utah to see what their centers are like.

Agenda Item #5: Teaching and Learning Resource Center

Sharolyn Belzer and Terry Lay - We need to identify critical things a center should be doing to help faculty and administration? Boise State, Portland, and Stanford have good websites that Council for Teaching and Learning members might view. Council members also need to look at what responsibilities the center should assume, and where it should be housed. Administrative location should be decided later. This issue will be revisited at the next meeting.

Agenda Item #6: Vice-chair selection

Sharolyn Belzer - Someone needs to volunteer for this position. Please think about this and this issue will be discussed at the next meeting.

Handouts
 

Draft of Policy Statement on Assessment
Assessment Plan Implementation Schedule
Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence Website
Portland State University - Website
Stanford University - Website

Adjournment: 2:45 p.m.

Approved: December 3, 1999