OUE dialogue notes

Office of Undergraduate Education dialogue notes 3.18.19

Assumptions

• Economic decline expected; jobs and school will be needed
• Pace of change in professionals and workplace will need to be echoed in UG programs
• Education will need to be flexible and responsive to changing needs in society
• Change based on results will need to occur quickly
• Expectations for long-term accountability
• Demos of the state changing; we will need to teach the students we have, not the students we wish we had
• Must balance higher learning with expectations for job readiness and debt sensitivity
• Parents increasingly are constituents – more connected, way more engaged, social media
• Business model for higher ed affects our ideals and actions
• More entrepreneurial mind-set of students
• Less $ from state and federal sources
• Most avoid deficits
• Mental health and resiliency are reasons for failure to progress; it used to be $
• Funding flat or decreasing
• Expanding definition of family has implications – not just traditional nuclear family
• More mental health concerns
• Many more uncertainties for students and need for speed to degree – economic consequences
• More students coming in under prepared
• Push to running start and college in the hs puts students in upper division classes before they are ready
• More international students
• Pressure: K-20 issues for most efficient paths
• Increased regulation into classroom, affects curriculum, e.g. dual credit
• Baby boomers retiring, and institutional memory is going with them

Mission

• Improve quality of life
• Land grant seems missing – too generic, could be Harvard or Yale
• Enhance economy? Too much business model v higher learning?
• Missing: mentored (and supported)
• Workforce readiness

Values

• Land-grant ideal: should be more in mission
• We need to live these more so than ever
  • Integrity, trust, respect
• Need more consistent message from administration about diversity – and progress
• Creative activity seems under valued
• Sense of community; sense of belonging
• Student ambassadors; Cougs help Cougs
• We sometimes shy away from conflict that can help students develop skills
• Freedom of expression – we struggle for the appropriate balance
• “Traditional” v “nontraditional” students – this terminology must stop
• “Engagement” needs meaning
• Why “pre-eminent” instead of “effective”
• Seems elitist – Ann Arbor andU Mich don’t feel like land grant
• These are not words students care about
• Needs to resonate

Drive to 25

• Seems too focused on research
• What about student accomplishments, great programs
• Emphasis is on faculty rather than on students
• Love the goal but cannot lose what we do so well
• Land grant – accessibility of faculty
• “the WSU difference”
• In meetings, nobody wants to hear about our undergraduate students when we talk about the DT25
• We will be more recognized for the accomplishments we already achieve
• So much top 25 already going on
• Some of this doesn’t affect the students; why don’t they benefit? Do the innovations get passed on?
• A lot of students do SURCA
• Need to value quality teaching
• Lacking equal support for the clinical faculty; teure-stream are not the only REAL faculty and hierarchy
• Arts missing
• What about interest in U Core classes e.g. Smith grant recipients
• Too much STEM
• Raised profile and respect for teaching faculty
• Online also will have the best faculty; if not, then not a system goal
• More pressure on arts and humanities
  • If service units only, they will be less able to contribute to quality of life to citizens of the world
• Our students will be more engaged in high-impact practices – e.g. research, scholarship, creative
  • More national meetings, distinguished scholarship recipients etc

Short-term goals

• Alignment of mental health goal with pre-eminence goals
• Value of their mental health acknowledged by students; stable citizens
• Students feel sense of accomplishment
• Holistic health; how understand world
• Employability—need a baseline and then progress
• Loan defaults will go down
• Higher grad rate
• Alumni will report good quality of life satisfaction
• 25% more faculty involved in coauthoring with UG students
• Humanities and social sciences involved with activities of UG – more competitors in Rhodes scholarships and Trumans
• 85% retention rate
• Lifelong learning for faculty development
• Working here has bettered me – more opportunities to do that
• More funding, more scholarships
• Tuition success with legislature
• Note that housing costs more than tuition
• #1 Supporting teaching and teachers and mentors
• Every student to have a mentor, someone they connect to
• Be efficient to ID most important high-impact practices
• Cultivate sense of community
• Freshman seminar for every student (“homeroom”)

Other