Brown Bag #3
April 2, 2004 @ 12 noon
Main Campus – Boardroom

In attendance: Jackie Addington, Cathy A Baker, Katie Ballard, Kevin Beardmore, Michael Boyd, Nick Brake, Linda K Calhoun, Geralyn M Caplan, Vickie L Curtis-Abuonk, Frances A Davis, Constance R Ford, Laura D Grimes, Vickie Hohiemer, Missie Jones, Greg Labyak, Julia C Ledford, Greta J McDonough, Craig Miller, Sarah Price, Judy A Rowland, Veena Sallan, John R Schroader, Robert A Southard, Sue E Stultz, Grant G Talbott, Barbara Tipmore, Brenda Tucker, Nancy K Turner

Kevin: Welcome and thank you.

Nick: IE transferred to Academic Affairs. An IE and planning team (Nick and Kevin) – Accreditation looming in 2005. Visit in Fall 2005. What is a little different this time? QEP—a new component. Required to submit a plan, engaging the academic as well as staff and students, create a plan to improve student learning. Find a topic broad enough but focused enough that will deal with all students in the institution.

Encourage all to speak—respect what everyone has to say—try to understand what others are saying. Will refer to them as the “vision” article, the “learning-centered” article, and the “only-connect” articles. Going around the table, identifying one idea or thought from the reading relevant to the kind of learning we value here at our institution.
Go round:
Can solve a wide variety of problems and puzzles
Redefining the roles of faculty and staff to learning (?)
Redesigning and personalizing student support services
#4 and #7 in vision article
#8 in vision article
Learning Centered – Identifying and assessing
Faculty and staff becoming equal partners
Only connect – freedom and growth
Selecting faculty and staff (hire)
Inventory articles – healthy learning environment – we need to define this
Only connect – that whole article, keep liberal arts out there and training faculty and staff as part of Learning Centered Institution
Vision article – written about business, it seems that table 1 like this
Identifying learning outcomes and assessing them – content of course and broad general education how to merge them
Vision – removing boundaries
Vision #4 student support
We are not learning centered? Blown away by this. Strategic challenge #5 making us a center for life long learning
Vision #6 technologically competent faculty
Learning centered article – distance learning - totally online degree options for students
Vision #9 program quality, and learning centered #5 learning and faculty
Be an emphasis on learning outcomes – learning centered college
Vision #10 culture – traditional academic culture vs. new academic culture, committed passionate leadership
Vision #10 Seize the day – be the best and brightest
Life long learning
Vision article #1 we must change and add technology to increase access
Visualization evaluating programs

Nick: Let’s talk a little bit about what learning we value. Making sure everything we do is consistent with our mission and values.

Ethics and applied ethics, make it practical and make it applied. Make the education something they can really use in their lives. Prepare them for the real world
Teaching our students to learn – instead of feeding them, make them dig for it
Our role – help them to think for themselves, help them make informed decisions, make their lives better, better citizen, better mother
Teaching them to live in the real world
Freedom to be the best they can be, contribute to the community, be whatever they want to be
Take what you learned, take it to the community, help others with what you learned.

Nick: Talk about barriers and challenges. Articulating pretty clearly about students bettering themselves, but talk about the barriers that exist.

Students that have too much on their plates to do anything well
Diversification – need to diversify our teaching methods
Students struggling to do college work
Students taking responsibilities for their own actions
Institution values a certain amount of control – have an attendance policy, not because I want to, but I know what will happen if I do not – but do these control factors make learning better?
Making students accountable for learning
Need to give them tools
Traditional ways vs. taking risks, maintaining the integrity of your system, while taking risks
Physical overcoming of something – see physical barriers on campus all the time
Convenience is a barrier – how convenient are we making education for our students
Can we offer some way of making spring break convenient – options for students
City bus does not come to this campus, how far is my car from the door? Making it more convenient
Academic barriers – need to get them out of the HS mentality that working together means we all get the same answers
What it is as faculty that we are supposed to be doing – online learning, more about mastery of learning as opposed to sitting in a seat. What is an appropriate learning assignment.
Time learning vs. the competencies of learning. Making cars, time reduced greatly by technology, but learning physics, the time has not been reduced much
Getting your degree meant getting your card punched, putting the time in
Class rooms set up like assembly lines, punch a check. We don’t have seminar rooms. Classroom set up like in 1880.
Mission: our mission doesn’t say much about learning. It says what we offer.
Dr. Addington: One of my pet peeves
Learning is personal, can we guarantee it?
But if we only talk about what we are going to do—we can’t guarantee it for everyone—but we need to have some assurance that they get it. Everyone can come in and get the ticket punched.
It is more philosophical
What is the student responsible for?
Tell the students what you expect.
Lead them to the water, can’t make them drink. Our job to run them around the lake so many times they get thirsty.
Students need to know what they are responsible.
Students need to be here, be in the moment.
Look back on what is going on in the HS, student just puts in the time. How this is different here. Younger ones tend to have a problem with this.
Students learned in the auditorium yesterday, they learned (Brave New World). We need to do that.
Need to keep them as part of the equation—the students. Their responsibility.
What do we provide that allows them to learn, to take responsibility.
Instilling excitement about what we are doing, we have a faculty and staff with the capability of doing that.

Nick: Let’s shift gears for a second. SACS will be happy to hear about what we value. But how will we know that we have made an impact. Students that leave here with a credential.

For me, it is easy, can they perform in a clinical setting. How they do when they get the job.
Passing their boards—this gives us a quantitative measurement.
Two year transfer students, how do we know when we send them to KWC, WKU, Brescia, Murray
We get a feedback report from WKU, not from others.
Can we get feedback from other colleges?
Anecdotally, what we hear is mostly good, hear more from Western than Brescia. Help them do that.

Nick: Vicki’s comment: Identifying the competencies and making sure they are measured. Is there a way to know when they hand them a diploma.

For each program, there needs to be a set of competencies that a student needs to attain.
In the only connect, won’t do that for all classes, but could divide them up, emphasize them in particular classes.

Nick: There are certain qualities we can identify. Life long learning. Hard thing to measure.

A grade in my class is a measurement of competency for that particular class. And your cumulative grade, in a perfect world, should be a measure of competency in the program. What other measure can we use
Grades are a good measure
If I take a better look at our program and course competencies, maybe our energies would be better spent on what we need to measure so that the grade becomes more meaningful for the class
Finding other ways to measure it
Do we have currently a core of comprehensive skills that apply to all students – things we want in every course, when you start changing cultural values, if they are repeated from course to course. Changing the culture

Nick: The Cronon article: some are skill oriented, some are intangible. How to infuse general education competencies into all courses.

The idea of what a student needs, or is attempting to accomplish, at diploma level, and through to a degree, identify those skills beyond the occupational. That general education element.
Work skills are general education skills – those are the same competencies
Learning things that you can use in everyday life—see the need for the learning, how you can use it in everyday life
Meaningful learning, not just lectures and not just testing, have to do soul-searching

Nick: Try to keep you on time. Opportunity for those who haven’t said much to talk, and thoughts on where we need to be heading on the QEP. My summation: We as a college need to articulate the kind of learning we all want to possess, and to be able to say that we know that it is happening. A blurring of technical programs and general education.

I think it is neat to have this opportunity to share ideas on this. Need to have these kind of opportunities and continuing the discussion. Need to have a lunchroom so we can meet and talk.
Feel like we are checking on students on and treating them like kindergarteners
Need to hear what the students have to say about this after meeting.
Having students read these articles.

Nick: Thank you for coming.

End note from a participant: In the midst of all of this discussion, we cannot forget those students that are so committed, wandering the streets of Owensboro because they aren’t able to get themselves home to a county a couple counties over. We have many, many, very committed students.