Brown Bag #6
April 13, 2004 @ 12 noon
Main Campus – Boardroom

In attendance: Donna G Abell, Jackie Addington, Melissa Alstott, Kevin Beardmore, Nick Brake, Sandy Carden, Karin V Chess, Kittridge H Dant, Donald R Dunn, James M Houston, Connie F Johnson, Cynthia L Johnston, Greg Labyak, Sally Lake, Terri H Lanham, Jenny Mason, Janet McKenney, Brandon J Millay, Vivian K Miller, Kelly A Morris, Kathy Mowers, Eilene Neal, Larry Neal, Vanessa A Price, Theresa M Schmitt, Barry S Stephens, Juliann Waits, Norma M Worth

Kevin: Welcome and thank you.

Nick: Major thrust over the past five years: consolidation. Time to do some strategic thinking about where we are going as a new, comprehensive institution. Accreditation looming in 2005. What is a little different this time? QEP—a new component. An IE and planning team (Nick and Kevin). 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. Starting with these articles, but this is an open discussion. Three articles that are broad based enough, but focused on learning, as our QEP must be.

Encourage all to speak—respect what everyone has to say—try to understand what others are saying. Give you a second to browse through the articles again, give one key idea or concept that exemplifies the kind of learning we value here at our institution.

Go round:
Students are expected to have 7 careers in their life—they need all ten qualities in the third articles
Selecting faculty and staff (Inventory article) – developing the appropriate skills and competencies we need to educate students
Emphasis on technology – don’t know if we can meet needs at this time
First article – measuring program quality – employers outcomes don’t always parallel our outcomes
Learning centered article - #6 consistency in programs so that students and faculty know what is expected – issue in LPN and RN
Learning centered article - #7 standardized competencies for each program – lots of standardization means students can slip through the cracks, but broad based measures good
Article #1 old vs. new – we tend toward the new
Inventory article – redefine faculty and staff roles – define roles by listening to our learners
Inventory article - #13 resources – defining of all of our resources for resource efficiency
First article – building strategic alliances – ATC and partnership with WKU, partnership with Large Scale Biology
Learning centered #12 technology – don’t need to stay within the bounds of the classroom
Learning centered #11 – collaboration need to do more – and the library is working on a bibliography of learning institution
ACT WorkKeys – using assessments more
How do we measure quality? What expectations do the students have? What does the administration think their role is? We need to develop communication tools to help everyone understand each other
Last article – use as a measure of our courses
Last article – but also in the learning centered article #12
Vision article - #10 achieving institutional advantage – make ourselves more competitive
#1 in learning centered colleges – revising mission statements to reflect outcomes
#10 in learning centered article – collaboration, great examples as a part of consolidation
Vision article - #4 redesigning student support services – being personalized, it makes someone more comfortable being here
Learning centered article #10 – collaboration, success comes as a team
Learning centered #11 – students taking responsibility for their own education
Learning centered #9 and #11 – orienting more students to the options available – making them aware of technical and scholastic options
Learning centered #11 – options available for students, particularly scholarships
Involving all stakeholders – new bylaws
Learning centered article – revolutionary culture shift – training faculty and staff, conversations about learning, focus on professional development opportunities

Nick: I would like to open it up to a little more interchange – what struck me today more than in the other groups – how do we know that we are adding value for students? How are we measuring program quality?

We are so specified in Nursing – one thing that is easy with us because of Board passage rate. What we are struggling with is graduation rate – we graduated 16 out of a potential 40. What should the balance be? And our measurement is a direct measurement of what some people in this room teach.
Looking back at the liberal arts idea again, if we are going to expect these things, we need to give them the opportunity to do all these things, across the board

Nick: What we measure and how we can embed this in all the programs we have.

Sometimes we act like they are buckets and what can we pour into them.
Nursing entrance test – there were several students that couldn’t read – scores in the single digits in reading on the CNET
There are computer programs that teach students mathematics, are there ones for reading?
Yes, but they are more supplemental. Students need technical vocabulary, the vocabulary for Nursing, the vocabulary for psychology, no software that does all that. Now that we have a need to teach students technical manuals.
Clarification – students taking the CNET it is a reading comprehension
I have to teach students how to read a physics problem. I have to teach them to read the problem, write down what they are given, what they are asked to find, a lot of my working problems on the board is done in that attitude
Losing students because of scholastic mode – talking about those in Nursing, etc., realize that the community has a need for technical people and scholastic people

Nick: Let’s take that remark and consider it in the context of Kathy’s thought about what we would want everyone to know. What do we want to impart on everyone who walks through our door?

Dr. A: We need to teach them how to learn. They don’t know AND they don’t know how to learn. Student responsibility – part of what we need to do – you can’t lead a horse to water, but you can lead him around the pond a few times to make him thirsty. Instructors somehow motivate students to learn

A love of learning has to be reaffirmed for all students
Showing them how it applies to their general life
A man who couldn’t tell you that ½ of ¾ is 3/8, but he could do amazing things with a hammer, in an applied setting

Nick: Let’s talk about culture. We need to create a culture of learning in our college. What are the barriers?

Students are so busy. It is a barrier for many.
Availability of technology
If you require that students use it—in my class we require it, and they said they use it more in my class than in CIS 100
As faculty we have to have a passion for learning. If we don’t have it, then the students won’t have it either. We need to hold it in our hearts ourselves.
Dr. A: How many of you – what percentage of students do you think are using their KCTCS e-mail.

They use their own.
Passwords expire – it is not student centered
Nursing program required it, and they are using it
I think you have the carrot, selective admissions, but most don’t have that carrot
It was a real learning curve for them, but we have a captive audience
E-mail is catching on
I don’t think they know what to value what is coming through
Are our students able to forward their e-mail?

Nick: Challenges

In the GE 100, there is the Myers-Briggs and a couple other ones

Nick: Utilizing GE 100 to do some of the things we do?

Many students take a couple courses as a non-degree student, then ask “do I need that course?”

Dr. A: It could be an incredibly dynamic course

Students having a busy lives, but we need to have a passion for accommodating students, even when that means that they need to attend to their own lives and then come back to school

Dr. A: I agree in one respect, but at the same time if they do that, they may never come back. Hope to get them excited enough about learning, get enough under their belt

Students have children, need to bring them to class. Some are at a point in their lives that they can’t focus on school

Dr. A: I agree, but can we move out of being #48? Some students have too many barriers.

Who is on the top?

Dr. A: I think some of the northeastern states

Having a good campaign so that we have more funds for scholarships that will allow them to stay in class without working so much

Dr. A: Southeast CC a good example, has more scholarships than anyone in the system

Scholarships a point, but when someone says I am taking it here because it is easier – just a community college. But I am using the same PowerPoint in the class I teach at both places
But when teachers do teach hard, students complain. I hear it from faculty and from students. Students don’t realize that it is for their benefit
Sometimes it isn’t just teaching it hard – making it difficult doesn’t make a better teacher – if the student sees your passion, they don’t notice you being hard
What do we mean by hard?
I am saying what the students are saying when they are at the counter.
It is a same when easy and hard instructors.

Nick: Let’s kind of wrap this up – let’s sort of take inventory, have some volunteers give you a summary of what you have heard. What have you heard as critical issues.

Assessment seems to be a very important issue – are they capable to be a college student and did the receive the skills they need
If we have students that aren’t scholastically ready for a program, guiding them to a program where they can be successful
The students aren’t the only ones that are dealing with problems everyday, faculty and staff have the problems that they have to deal with as well
How do we motivate students and how do we teach, the difference between a thorough approach and just a difficult one. Professional development in learning and teaching styles would be helpful. People generally teach as they have been taught
PCP program – need to talk with you more as a group.