June 25, 2013
2:00 pm.
Ruby Hicks Hall, Room 248
Members Present: Dan
Averette, Tim Bowen, Scott Harvey, Dan Holland, Lynn Lewis, Robin McFall, Amoena
Norcross
Members Absent: Jackie
Blakley, Amanda Blanton, Sarah Shumpert, Todd Crisp-Simons, Brian Swords
Others Present: Deborah Brock, Sarah Dowd, Tom
Lawrence, Karrie Moore, Gregg Stapleton
Length of Meeting: 2.0 hours
Topics Discussed:
The minutes of the June 7, 2013 meeting were approved as
presented. Galen mentioned the addition
of the Key Talking Points to the agenda and the minutes.
Amoena Norcross led the discussion on the Financial
Aid/Academic Affairs Workgroup Recommendations.
The members of the workgroup, several of whom were in attendance, were
Amoena Norcross, Karrie Moore, Sarah Dowd, Scott Harvey, Todd Crisp-Simons, and
Rob Massey. Amoena reviewed each of the
documents that were sent via e-mail to Provost’s Council prior to the meeting. The document noting the FA/AA Workgroup’s
deliverables and recommendations is attached.
The following were noted.
·
To create consistent communication, keep the FA
and AA status letters separate. The
group approved of the FA and AA status letters with minor revisions. Anne will work Scott Harvey to update some
fields in the AA letters.
·
The Academic Improvement Plan must be in place
in order for the student to appeal. The
advisor and student agree on the plan, and the advisor documents the agreement
in DegreeWorks. A Financial Aid committee
reviews the appeal. The student is on
warning for one semester, and will have the entire semester to address any
issues. There are two points in the
process where the student acknowledges and agrees with the plan.
·
There was discussion on advisors’ attendance at
a joint FA/AA workshop. The group agreed
that the workshop will be mandatory for anyone with advising responsibilities,
and agreed to change the wording of recommendation number three to “must.”
·
Placing multiple workshop sessions, closer to
the time when the information is used will be most beneficial, perhaps between
the beginning of the semester and fall advising. With so much information, the workshops will
need to be outcome driven. Deborah Brock
will work with Rob Massey and Karrie Moore to facilitate these sessions.
·
The group agreed that a workgroup or project
charter team should be created to investigate enrollment limits based on
academic standing, to include a review of limits to summer credit hours. Implementation may be a challenge, since
students may have to be removed from courses for which they have already
registered.
There will be a grace period for fall semester 2013, as the
college makes the change to the institutional GPA. With this in mind, the group agreed to implement
these changes in the spring for the next summer/fall registration.
Amoena commended the group for a lot of good work, done
quickly.
Deborah Brock discussed Service Learning and distributed two
handouts, New Service Learning Project
Development and Implementation Opportunity and New Service Learning Project Faculty Availability Form. In
reviewing the handouts, Deborah noted the definition of service learning and
how it ties into faculty development.
She also noted that Kate Williams helped with this project and developed
a service learning data base, presented concepts, and hosted a webinar. Based on the data collected, students
overwhelmingly agreed that service learning was beneficial to them and that the
college should have more of it. In order
to do that, Kate found that faculty needed time to develop and time to
implement. Funding from several sources
may be available to help with these faculty needs. The goal is to have funding for one faculty
project from each of the four credit divisions.
The following were noted:
The group agreed that the July 26 proposal deadline would be
enough time to find replacement faculty.
The service learning must be embedded in the curriculum. It would require the student to reflect,
analyze, and produce some kind of product.
If the instructor is implementing (teaching) the course, is
spring released time necessary? Review the
proposal at the end of fall to determine if spring released time is
necessary.
Service learning classes will be given an attribute in
Banner so that students and advisors know what they are signing up for and what
is involved/required for the class.
The service learning evaluation can be whatever works best
for the class.
Consider a big project, such as a Habitat for Humanity
build, in which a student could participate based on interest. One concern would be that the activity would
not be tied to a student learning outcome.
Taking these items into consideration, Deborah will move
forward with this initiative.
The Student Retention agenda item was postponed and will be
addressed at a later meeting.
Under Announcements, Scott Harvey mentioned the Strategic
Scheduling tool. This can be used as an
audit to determine what students need to graduate and to project out the number
of courses and sections needed. He also
noted that College Scheduler should be up in about three weeks. College Scheduler is helpful because students
can access it and it will show student interest.
Lynn Lewis noted that she and her faculty are actively
meeting to prepare for the LPN site visit in January. For the first time, the site visit will not
take place at the Pendleton campus. They
are intent on making resources available to students, and trying to teach
students how to find them.
Amoena noted that this was her last meeting as Faculty
Senate President. Todd Crisp-Simons will
take over in July. She appreciated the
opportunity to represent Faculty Senate on the Provost’s Council.
Dan Averette reported that the EIT division is in the
process of closing the MTT program and implementing the new CNC program. The CNC implementation target is fall. Advisors are working with the MTT students to
try to determine, based on time remaining in the MTT program, if a move to the
CNC program would be beneficial to the student.
There may be a competency issue but that could be resolved with a bridge
course.
Key Talking Points:
1.
Service Learning Overview - to provide faculty development to improve active
and collaborative learning in the classroom.
2.
FA/AA Workgroup findings which addressed:
a.
Communication issues
b.
Level of faculty understanding of FA
c.
Action Item – Workgroup or project team to address
enrollment limits based on academic standing.
3.
New tools – Strategic Scheduling and College Scheduler
4.
CHE – has approved the new CNC Programming &
Operations Degree. MTT is in the process
of developing a sunset plan. Tri-County
is the only college in the state to offer this degree.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
Recorded By: Anne Bryan
Next Meeting: Tuesday,
July 9, at 2:00 p.m., in RH 245
FA/AA Workgroup Recommendations June 17, 2013
FINANCIAL AID/ACADEMIC AFFAIRS WORKGROUP
Deliverables:
- Determine
faculty’s responsibility to understand FA standing and determine depth of
information to be communicated to advisees/students.
- Determine
role of advising to assist students in understanding FA (not training of
advisors, only the advisor’s role).
- Determine
elements needed in advisor training for 2. above.
- Create
consistent communication to students from FA & AA.
- Determine/review
basics of FA appeals process.
- Determine
enrollment restrictions for students who fall below Standards of Academic
Progress.
Workgroup Recommendations:
- FA
& AA should continue, independently of each other, to notify students
falling below satisfactory academic standards. Revised FA & AA letters are
attached. Our rationale for FA and
AA independently notifying students of their status is as follows:
- In
addition to the AA requirement that students maintain a minimum
institutional 2.0 GPA, FA also requires an additional criterion
pertaining to an institutional Pass Rate (Hours Passed/Hours Attempted).
- FA
has 3 levels of standing (Good, Warning, and Suspension); AA has 4 levels
of standing (Good, Warning, Probation, Suspension).
- The
Academic Improvement Plan referenced in the FA Warning letter should be
documented by the student’s advisor in DegreeWorks. FA will then access
this plan if the student is placed on FA Suspension and files an
appeal. If an Academic Improvement
Plan is not documented in DegreeWorks (i.e., the student does not meet
with his advisor and determine an Academic Improvement Plan or the advisor does not
record the plan in DegreeWorks), the student will be unable to file an
appeal if placed on FA Suspension.
- Advisors
should attend a workshop jointly developed and presented by FA and
AA. The workshop should address the
following topics:
- AA
vs. FA Student Academic Progress Levels
- AA
vs. FA Communication of Academic Progress Levels to Students
- FA
Federal Regulations vs. TCTC Policy
- Academic
Improvement Plan Development and Documentation
- FA
Appeal Process
- Web
Snapshots
Workshop presentations will be held during
the week of Aug. 12, 2013.
- A
workgroup/project charter should be created to further investigate
enrollment limits based on academic standing. See attached Enrollment Limit Data
chart. An additional charge for
this team should include reviewing credit enrollment limits during summer
terms. Currently, a student may enroll in 15 credit hours (AS and BPS
students) or 18 hours (HE and EIT students) during any combination of
summer terms without requiring an advisor and dean to approve a Request to
Exceed Maximum Credit Hour Load form.
