WASC Self Study: A First Look

1. WASC Self Study: A First Look Co Co-sponsored by President Castro and the Academic Senate www.wascsenior.org submit questions to @Fresno_State and use #FresnoStateWASC

2. Outline • Overview of WASC and accreditation • Our process so far • Summary of key points from the self study • Feedback

3. Regional Accreditation • Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools • New England Association of Schools and Colleges • North Central Association of Colleges and Schools • Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities • Western Association of Schools and Colleges • Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

4. Regional Accreditation: • Assures quality • Allows students to transfer credits • Allows students to receive federal financial aid • Provides institutions an opportunity to reflect on their practices and improve

6. CFR Examples: 1.2 Educational objectives are widely recognized throughout the institution, are consistent with stated purposes, and are demonstrably achieved. The institution regularly generates, evaluates, and makes public data about student achievement, including measures of retention and graduation, and evidence of student learning outcomes.

7. CFR Examples: 3.3 The institution maintains appropriate and sufficiently supported faculty and staff development activities designed to improve teaching, learning, and assessment of learning outcomes.

8. The Self Study - provides evidence of the CFRs through • Introduction: Institutional Context; Response to Previous Commission Actions • Compliance with WASC Standards and Federal Regulations: Self-review under the Standards; Compliance Checklist • Degree Programs: Meaning, Quality, and Integrity of Degrees • Educational Quality: Student Learning, Core Competencies, and Standards of Performance at Graduation • Student Success: Student Learning, Retention, and Graduation • Quality Assurance and Improvement: Program Review; Assessment; Use of Data and Evidence • Sustainability: Financial Viability; Preparing for the Changing Higher Education Environment • Conclusion: Reflection and Plans for Improvement

9. Our Campus Process: • Fall 2012 – Meaning Quality and Integrity Subcommittee and Core Competency Subcommittee • Executive Committee • Steering Committee

10. Our Campus Process: • Fall 2013 – Essays written by groups (from Exec and Steering) – 2 rounds of revision • Jan 2014 – Outside review / revision • March – Editing and revision by Gil Harootunian • April 2014 - draft circulated to campus for input

11. Looking forward: • Aug 2014: Self narrative submission • November 20, 2014: Offsite Review • October 20-22, 2015: Accreditation Visit

12. Introduction: Institutional Context; • Sets institutional context as regional, minority serving, primarily first gen commuter campus. • Changes over last 10 years including: • Demographics (more Hispanic, more Pell eligible) • Classification as Carnegie engaged institution • Capital Campaign and infrastructure

13. Introduction: Response to Previous Commission Actions • Strengthening GE and University Wide Assessment • Faculty Expectations for Research / Universities place within Higher Ed.

14. Compliance with WASC Standards and Federal Regulations: Self-review under the Standards; Compliance Checklist • Compliance Review • Policies clear and Shared governance string • Self review • Strengths • Strategic planning • Student success focus • Faculty evaluation • Values diversity

15. Self Review (cont’d) Challenges: • Values and character weak in mission statement • SLO standards generally nonexistent • Lack of publicly available data on achievement of SLOs • MQI not language we have used • Information literacy not a focus • ILOs just now being developed • GE assessment course rather than program based • Student affairs program review processes unclear • Broader concept of faculty development needed-address part-time faculty

16. Degree Programs: Meaning, Quality, and Integrity of Degrees • Development of Institutional Learning Outcomes for undergrad (and potential for eportfolios) • Less work done for graduate programs • Reviewed assessment processes in place to insure quality

17. Educational Quality: Student Learning, Core Competencies, and Standards of Performance at Graduation • Fresno State evaluated written communication core competency in spring/summer 2013. Seventy-one percent (71%) of W course samples and 94% of W exam samples are rated at competent or accomplished levels (on a rubric developed by The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, and adopted by Writing Across the Curriculum Committee at Fresno State).

18. Educational Quality: Student Learning, Core Competencies, and Standards of Performance at Graduation • Fresno State is planning to evaluate all five cores (Oral and Written Communication, Information Literary, Critical Thinking and Quantitative Reasoning) by selecting student work samples via an E-portfolio system that will be implemented in 2014-15 academic year.

19. Educational Quality: Student Learning, Core Competencies, and Standards of Performance at Graduation • Standards of Core competency will be determined either universally (all students are expected to reach a certain level) or by discipline (students are expected to reach varying degrees of competency across disciplines).

20. Student Success: Student Learning, Retention, and Graduation • Fresno State has had an unwavering focus on improving student learning, retention and degree completion for well over a decade. • A wide variety of discipline specific initiatives, pedagogy, technology and intervention strategies have been deployed to support student retention and degree completion.

21. Student Success: Student Learning, Retention, and Graduation • Fresno State is well on track to surpass the goal of increasing the six year graduation rate by six percentage points (from 45 to 51%) and is making good progress with closing the achievement gap between underrepresented minority groups and non-Underrepresented minority groups.

22. Quality Assurance and Improvement: Program Review; Assessment; Use of Data and Evidence • Culture of evidence and use of data are evolving • University-level use of data is strong; program-level use of data needs to be strengthened • Fall short in follow-through on Program Review Action Plans • Currently lacking a means by which we periodically review the Program Review process

23. Sustainability: Financial Viability; Preparing for the Changing Higher Education Environment • Organization • Fiscal • Process • Alignment • Strategic planning • University • Division

24. Sustainability: Financial Viability; Preparing for the Changing Higher Education Environment • Identify and Respond to changes in higher education • Access • Accountability • EPortfolios • Accommodation • Common core • Learning strategies/pedagogies • Technology

25. Feedback: • Twitter: submit questions to @Fresno_Stateand use #FresnoStateWASC • Submit feedback on the web: www.fresnostate.edu/wasc