Section 2.5: Institutional Effectiveness

Judgment of Compliance

Requirement

Narrative

McNeese State University is in compliance with Core Requirement 2.5.

The University engages in ongoing, integrated, and institutional-wide research-based planning and evaluation processes that incorporate a systematic review of programs and services that result in continuing improvement and demonstrates that the institution is effectively accomplishing its mission.

Planning and evaluation are guided by standards and goals determined by the State of Louisiana, the Board of Regents, the University of Louisiana System, and McNeese State University. The expected outcomes of these guidelines are that the University will examine its programs and services so that the University effectively accomplishes its mission.

State of Louisiana, Board of Regents and UL System Goals

To encourage accountability and fiscal responsibility at all levels of state government, Legislative Act 1465 was enacted during the 1997 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature. Act 1465 established performance-based budgeting and required all state agencies to participate in a strategic planning process and to produce a five-year strategic plan that was driven by the institution’s mission.

The University of Louisiana System as the governing body of state universities oversees this planning process for institutions under its aegis. In response to the mandates of Revised Statute 39:31 and the goals and objectives identified by the UL System, McNeese State University has produced the 1999-2004 Strategic Plan and 2005-2009 Strategic Plan.

The LaPAS website notes that “[d]epartments and agencies are required to submit quarterly Performance Progress Reports to LaPAS via a secure, web-based application. The Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) in the Division of Administration, as the official record keeper of performance standards and information, maintains LaPAS. This process is a means for the University and its governing boards to assess the institution’s progress toward system and state goals.”

Governing Board – Institution Level Planning

As a state agency, the Board of Regents, like the colleges and universities that make up the system of Louisiana institutions of higher learning, must meet the obligations of planning and reviewing its own performance and that of its member institutions.

The Board of Regents must plan, coordinate, and assume budgetary responsibility for all public post-secondary education in Louisiana. The Louisiana Constitution charges the BOR with the responsibility of formulating and keeping current a master plan for post-secondary education.

As mandated by state law, in 1999, the BOR began reviewing and revising the Master Plan. Informed by higher education faculty, administrators, and students, secondary school personnel, business leaders, economic development leaders, professional organizations, and other interested citizens, the BOR developed the Master Plan for Public Post Secondary Education: 2001. Formalized after six thorough revisions, the Master Plan initiated sweeping changes in Louisiana higher education.

The Master Plan introduces a bold plan to improve the quality of life for all Louisiana citizens and charges its institutions of higher education to fulfill those obligations. The Master Plan notes that “Louisiana’s postsecondary education system is dedicated to improving the quality of life for the state’s citizens. It demands from its institutions a level of performance in teaching, research, and public service that both acknowledges and challenges the capabilities and missions of each” (9).

Three immediate goals identified in the Master Plan became the framework for system-wide planning. Institutions of higher learning in Louisiana were mandated to embrace the following:

• Increase Opportunities for Student Access and Success;

• Ensure Quality and Accountability;

• Enhance Services to Community and State.

To aid institutions in analyzing statewide enrollment trends and to assist them in developing their own action plans to meet the goals and objective identified in the Master Plan, the state commissioned Noel-Levitz, a well-known consulting firm, to conduct a statewide study.

Institution Planning and Evaluation

The processes for systematic, ongoing, integrated, research-based evaluation and assessment were put into motion. The timeline below demonstrates the process by which the University established a more systematic process for institutional planning and assessment:

• In 1986, McNeese State University formalized its planning and evaluation process with the establishment of the Planning and Outcomes Assessment Committee. The first of its kind at the University, the Planning and Outcomes Assessment Committee began its critical work of developing a five-year plan while continuing to work on an Institutional Effectiveness Measurement Program mandated by the Board of Regents.

• In 1989, the University established the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning. To sustain the University’s efforts to maintain accreditation and to foster a climate where planning and evaluation of programs and services are valued, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness educates, guides, and supports assessment activities throughout administrative units and academic programs.

• In 1995, the University combined two support units into one, expanding the duties to include academic support. The unit was renamed the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Academic Support.

Evolution of the University Mission

With the advent of increased accountability and performance-based outcomes measures, the role of the IE Office has expanded since 1995 to include guiding support and academic units in identifying outcomes and measures and offering training in strategies for reporting them. The mission of the IE Office has evolved into the following:

The mission of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness is to educate, guide, and support assessment activities that advance the University’s mission. Institutional Effectiveness is responsible for coordinating institutional accreditation and for tracking program accreditation by outside accrediting agencies. The Office provides administrative and academic support by disseminating institutional policies, by revising and maintaining the Faculty/Staff Handbook and MSU Catalog, and by maintaining the SACS and IE websites. The Enrollment Management Scholarship Program is administered through this office for the purpose of recruiting and retaining students from outside the five-parish area. The Office serves faculty, staff, and students. (2006 Master Plan/Progress Report, 955)

Under the guidance of the IE Office, in 2001, the University revised its mission statement to reflect a comprehensive scope of its graduate and undergraduate programs. With the publication of the Board of Regents Master Plan for Public Post Secondary Education: 2001, however, the University felt it necessary to revise its mission to incorporate the University’s newly-identified “core values” and succinctly capture the institutional goals that guided the institution.

The process by which the current mission statement was revised was systematic and inclusive:

• In the Fall 2004 semester, the President requested an evaluation of the mission to determine whether or not it was relevant to the new admissions standards that the Board of Regents had implemented in its Master Plan.

• The campus community was invited to participate in the review and revision of the mission. Constituents were notified through campus mail, email, and the University listserve.

• Input from University stakeholders was compiled and evaluated by the President, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and the Director of IE.

• Based on comments and contributions from interested individuals, the mission was revised. It is imbued with the core values that drive all University operations: Student Success, Academic Excellence, Fiscal Responsibility, and University-Community Alliances.

• The core values, first identified in 2001 at the President’s General Faculty Meeting for faculty and staff, are closely aligned with institutional goals defined by the President which represent priorities that have been identified by University constituents.

• The revised mission statement was reviewed and approved by the University’s Executive Staff, administrators who serve as the University’s strategic planning team.

• The mission statement was approved by the University community in February 2005 and approved by the Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana System in April 2005.

Purpose- Mission- and Goal-Driven Planning and Assessment

The mission, institutional goals, and core values are the basis of on-going planning and evaluation processes in all University support units and academic departments. Each academic department, unit, and program develops a mission/purpose statement that relates to the University mission. Under the leadership of the President, Deans, Department Heads, faculty and staff plan, develop, implement, and evaluate the processes and procedures for fulfilling the institutional goals that support the University mission. The President facilitates attainment of unit and program goals by interactive supervision, active participation in the planning and assessment processes of the University, and equitable allocation of resources.

Members of the Executive Staff are responsible for fostering achievement of the University’s twenty institutional goals. Information and data generated by the Louisiana Board of Regents, the University IE Office and academic and support unit master plans/progress reports are reviewed to determine how well the institutional goals are being met.

Although data is collected on all twenty goals on an annual basis, a five-year institutional goal assessment plan guides the frequency by which a comprehensive review and analysis is conducted. In any given year, four institutional goals are evaluated. Each year thereafter for three years, a different set of goals is evaluated. This rotation process, or focused review, ensures that all core values are assessed within a five-year cycle and within the limits of time and available resources.

Annual Master Plan/Progress Report Process

The center of the University’s on-going, integrated, and research-based planning and evaluation process is the annual master plan/progress report process. Each unit – support and academic – collects quantitative data, reviews the data and the activities over the past academic or calendar year, and determines how that information can be used to improve in whatever ways are appropriate. As support and academic units become better informed about and more experienced with the assessment cycle, they will become more intentional about their processes.

The process for completing the assessment cycle is systematic:

1. Each academic department and unit defines its mission and relates it to the larger context of the University mission.

2. The unit identifies appropriate institutional goals and core values that are inherent in its mission.

3. Once the goals and values have been identified, the unit creates objectives or outcomes that can be measured to ensure that the goals are met and the mission has been achieved.

4. In order to determine the effectiveness of the work that each unit does – how effectively the objectives have been met – the unit must identify means and methods for assessing performance. Through these measures, the unit can assess its performance and progress.

5. Once the objectives have been measured and the data collected and analyzed, then the unit determines how its future activities should be shaped in order to more successfully achieve its goals.

6. These plans for continuous improvement will then be measured the following year and the unit can determine whether or not those goals have been reached.

The master plan/progress report process is conducted through the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. Master Plans/Progress Reports collected since 1990 are archived in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. Master Plans/Progress Reports written before 1990 are on file in the Frazar Memorial Library.

Modifications in the IE Process

From a broader perspective, institutional planning is a continual process of review and evaluation. Institutional planning is broad-based and inclusive. Students, staff, faculty, administrators, and external stakeholders participate.

Personnel changes in the IE Office prompted an extensive review of the University’s assessment and documentation processes. Minor modifications to the process and template had been made over the years; however, in 2005, the McNeese Leadership Team refined and clarified the process by which master plans/progress reports were developed. The IE Office developed a “Master Plan Template” in an effort to ensure that the concepts of ongoing assessment and continuous improvement were fully-integrated across campus. Extensive web-based research was conducted by Leadership Team members to review best practices for assessment and outcome measurement.

Prior to 2005, Master Plans were required of colleges, departments, and units. The new Master Plan/Progress Report process was expanded to include academic programs within each department. The template previously used was changed to assist academic programs and administrative units in understanding and preparing the plan.

Academic program Master Plans/Progress Reports focused on Student Learning Outcomes; administrative unit Master Plans/Progress Reports focused on Performance Objectives. In addition, the terminology was revised to include Performance Indicators or benchmarks against which outcomes/objectives would be measured. An Executive Summary is now included in the final report providing an overview of the progress of attaining the University’s goals and mission.

Annual training regarding the Master Plan process is held for all units, colleges, departments, and programs led by the Director of Institutional Effectiveness. Campus personnel are invited to attend training workshops through email forwarded from Deans, Department Heads, and/or Supervisors.

In March 2005, the MSU President authorized the creation of the McNeese Assessment Team (MAT) to assist academic and non-academic units in understanding the concepts of assessment, incorporating assessment methodologies into learning outcomes and objectives, and planning for continuous improvement. Members were appointed from each college, the Library, and Institutional Research. The MAT is responsible for reviewing and evaluating individual Master Plans/Progress Reports and other processes to ensure that assessment and continuous improvement are key components of the unit. MAT Meetings are held on a monthly basis.

The MAT recommended that Master Plan templates be uniform across the campus in order to ensure that the essential components of the assessment process were addressed by all units – both support and academic.

The history of the development of assessment and evaluation at the University is recorded in meeting minutes of Executive Staff, University Budgetary Council, Administrative Budgetary Committee, Information Technology Committee, and other committees, councils, and focus groups.

Academic Program Review

A critical part of the assessment process is the review of academic programs. The University maintains the highest academic program quality possible and ensures that each program achieves its stated objectives and student learning outcomes through its process for academic program review. Annual Master Plan/Progress Reports ensure that student learning outcomes are being achieved, documented, and reported. In addition to the annual program review conducted by each unit for the Master Plan/Progress Report, academic program review is achieved in two ways:

• External program review by learned societies and professional agencies.

• Periodic self-evaluation and review according to MSU policy.

Periodic self-evaluation can be effected in the following ways:

• Non-accredited undergraduate programs use accreditation criteria outlined by an appropriate accrediting agency. For example, foreign language programs evaluate their curricula using American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) standards.

• Non-accredited undergraduate programs for which no accrediting agency exists use the MSU Undergraduate Academic Program Self-Evaluation format beginning in the 2006-07 academic year. Faculty members develop a program review and submit to faculty from other institutions or experts in the field for review.

• Non-accredited graduate programs began program self-evaluation according to criteria developed by the Graduate Council during 2006-07 academic year.

Undergraduate and graduate academic program coordinators are responsible for program development, program review and evaluation, including identifying appropriate external reviewers.

General Education Assessment

The Louisiana Board of Regents directed a comprehensive study of undergraduate education in 1984 and engaged a Statewide Task Force on General Education and an out-of-state Review Committee to study and make recommendations on General Education requirements. The Board approved a policy on Statewide General Education Requirements at its April 26, 2001, meeting. The policy regarding statewide general education requirements specifies that undergraduate program completers demonstrate mastery of the following competencies:

• Communicate effectively in oral and written English;

• Read with comprehension;

• Reason abstractly and think critically;

• Understand numerical data and statistics;

• Understand the scientific method;

• Be familiar with key technological and informational applications;

• Learn independently;

• Recognize and appreciate cultural diversity;

• Understand the nature and value of the fine and performing arts;

• Develop a personal value system while retaining a tolerance for others;

• Understand the American political and economic system.

The Louisiana Board of Regents directed each institution to employ appropriate testing procedures to measure the effectiveness of its general education program. In October 2002, the University Vice President of Academic Affairs created a task force to examine general education core competencies and the University’s plan for measuring them. The task force duties were as follows:

• Review the general education requirements to develop a list of courses that met the Regents’ mandate;

• Ensure that all goals were covered by at least one of the courses in each degree plan;

• Ensure that content of the courses actually met goals.

The task force was also asked to examine the purposes of mid-point assessment currently in place. The University identifies purposes of its Midpoint Assessment of Academic Performance (MAAP) as follows:

• Measure educational development of students in core academic areas after the completion of the general education curriculum;

• Determine the readiness of students for beginning junior-level course work;

• Identify weaknesses and strengths of the general education curriculum at McNeese State University for use in decision making regarding the general education core;

• Provide students soon after the mid-point of their college career with concrete information on which to base their decisions regarding careers and educational goals. (University Catalog, 59)

All students enrolled in a four-year degree program must take the MAAP when they have earned between 48-80 credit hours. Students who have earned 80 semester hours without completing the assessment exam are not allowed to enroll in 300/400 level courses. The MAAP is administered each fall and spring semester through the testing office. Information regarding testing dates, times, and places is published on the University website and in the fall and spring class schedules.

After careful consideration of its charge to examine the mid-point assessment process, the task force made the following observations on October 8, 2003, in its report to the Vice President of Academic Affairs:

• The exam scores on the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) should not be used as a tool to measure individual student performance, but as a tool to measure the performance of the aggregate student population because (a) the exam does not incorporate all of the state-mandated competencies; and (b) because many students take the CAAP before they have completed their general education requirements.

• Lack of student motivation to perform well on the CAAP results in scores that do not adequately reflect student competencies. Students are not motivated to succeed on the CAAP for several reasons: (a) scores do not affect grade point averages; (b) scores are not placed on the permanent record; (c) there is no cutoff score for pass or fail.

• Despite its shortcomings, CAAP was determined the best tool to provide comprehensive institutional reports because (a) it shows internal comparisons and user norms; (b) provides individual student reports; and (c) is affordable.

• The CAAP should continue as the tool used to assess general education competencies.

In its efforts to ensure that general education assessment is continuous, in 2005, the University reorganized the general education task force into the Council for General Education Assessment. This group is charged with periodic review of the following:

• Courses which satisfy general education competencies;

• Pass rates;

• Withdrawal rates;

• Annual review of standardized test results.

Because of exigent circumstances brought about by the severe impact on the campus by Hurricane Rita, the Council for General Education Assessment was unable to address General Education issues to any great degree in the Fall 2005. Resuming its important work during the Spring 2006, the Council has completed the following tasks:

• Revised the mission statement for general education;

• Recast the Board of Regents competencies in terms of student learning outcomes;

• Codified the current assessment methods;

• Defined outcomes measures.

The revised mission statement follows:

General Education at McNeese State University provides a broad-based liberal educational experience and incorporates the goals of the Statewide General Education Requirements as established by the Board of Regents in an effort to ensure that all graduates have attained the appropriate competencies. (Revised April 11, 2006)

The Council has carefully reviewed general education assessment tools and recommended the ETS Academic Profile-Standard Form (AP-SF) as the University’s mid-point assessment tool. The AP-SF tests a broader range of competencies than its predecessor, includes a writing competency component, and can be administered electronically, an option which not only simplifies the administration of the exam, but also provides a more rapid feedback than the traditional paper/pencil format.

Budgeting Process and Institutional Effectiveness

The University has appropriate institutional research and budgetary support for assessment programs across the University. The budget planning process is governed by the institutional mission and goals. It is the policy of the University that all departments involve faculty members in the initial phase of department budget planning and preparation. The budgeting process is overseen by the President’s Executive Staff. The budget is developed by the President’s Executive Staff in consultation with administrators in each area. The University Budgetary Council, presided over by the President, consists of the President’s Executive Staff, the academic deans, the Dean of Enrollment Management, the Director of Frazar Memorial Library, and a faculty senate representative. The System Fund Budget Committee, presided over by the Vice President for Administration and Student Affairs, consists of the Director of the Recreation Complex, the Dean of Student Services, the Bookstore Manager, the Director of Facilities and Plant Operations, and the Budget Officer. This committee addresses system fund budget issues.

Supporting Evidence

SACS, Quality Enhancement Plan, and 2005 Master Plan training presentation for academic programs

SACS, Quality Enhancement Plan, and 2005 Master Plan training presentation for administrative

Survey conducted to assess the SACS, QEP, and Master Plan training workshops

The initial Master Plan instructions were posted to the web on February 18th, 2005

A revised instruction letter was posted on April 8th, 2005

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness houses documentation to assist academic programs and administrative units in evaluation and assessment. References to assessment websites are posted to the web at http://www.mcneese.edu/assessment/tools.php.

Training Schedule

Training attendance roster

The Master Plan template for academic programs

Master Plan template for academic units

President's Executive Staff Roster

Presidents Executive Staff Notes

University Budgetary Council Roster

University Budgetary Council Minutes

Information Technology Steering Team Roster

Information Technology Strategic Planning Committee Roster

Administrative Budgetary Committee Roster

Administrative Budgetary Committee Minutes

Administrative Budgetary Committee Notes Prior to 2001 (available in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness)

Strategic Planning Initiatives

Operational Plans

Mission Support Flowchart

Strategic Plan Flowchart

Support Personnel Flowchart

MSU Mission Statement

Mission Statement Review

MSU Institutional Goals

Institutional Goal Review and Information

Strategic Plans Submitted to ULS

MSU Strategic Plan and Institutional Goal Analysis (2005-06 to 2009-10)

MSU/ULS/BOR Goal Linkage

McNeese Assessment Team Letter to Dr. Hebert

Master Plan Survey - Spring 2005

Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education: 2001

President's Memos

Building Meeting Agendas

Deans Meeting/Retreat Agendas

Program Coordinators