Placement Committee Meeting 2/9/17

Tri-County Technical College -- Placement Committee Meeting

Thursday, February 9^th, 2017 -- RH 248A

 

Faculty/Staff Present

Andrea Barnett, Amanda Blanton, K.C. Bryson, Galen Dehay, Allison Earley, Jennifer Hulehan, Tom Lawrence, Pamela McWhorter, Carol Watts, and Elizabeth Cox.

Faculty/Staff Absent

Scott Harvey

Opening Statement

Galen stated the purpose of the meeting was to determine the Development of the Philosophy of Placement in Multiple Measures.  Will we continue with course placement or should we change to program placement?  The Nursing Program and Vet Tech Programs use program placement.

• If we focus on program placement and not course placement in Multiple Measures, how does this affect the college?
   
• Is Reading a factor in how we apply Multiple Measures?  Reading could be the first filter for Multiple Measures.
   
• Can we come up with a system that predicts success in Multiple Measures?  We can’t use high school GPA’s.  However, some committee members are in favor of using high school GPA’s as one method of application, maybe Step #1.  We are not sure if weighted or unweighted scores are in Banner.  Galen will check with Scott.  Amanda stated that weighted is a more accurate GPA score.  The unweighted score is on a four (4) point scale with a five (5) score being weighted as a four (4).
   
• Our current placement scores indicate college ready for math.  Compass scores and Multiple Measures scores are very close in math, with Multiple Measures being more accurate.  The math and reading scores in ACT are good indicators of college success. 
   
• The academic year 2016-17 for K-12 will be on a ten (10) point scale.  The required Life Scholarship GPA score of 3.0 will be bumped up to a higher score.  A 3.0 score in high school yields a 2.5 score in college on average performance.
   

Galen Stated Our Goals

• Goal #1—Identify what methods are out there and what are the elements that make up Multiple Measures.
   
• Goal #2—K.C. will look backward two-three years on high school transcripts for analysis of high school GPA’s.
   
• Goal #3—Research of all Multiple Measures methods presently being used and see where path leads.
   
• Goal #4—Galen will research Muskegon Community College, which has a high Native American population, to see what they use for determining college readiness.
   

Placement Chart

• On Placement Chart, Level 0 – 19 for adult education and on Level 5, a minimum of 20.
   

Summary

• The State has not mandated a date for implementation of Multiple Measures.
   
• Next meeting will be February 23^rd from 2:15 to 4:15 p.m. in RH 245 with guest speaker, Brad Bostian from North Carolina.
   

With no other business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned.

 

Recorded by Elizabeth Cox

 

 

 

Academic Leadership Team Minutes (1/10/17)

Academic Leadership Team, January 10, 2017, 1:00 pm, Ruby Hicks Hall, Room 248, (Revised)

 

Members Present:       Gayle Arries, Jackie Blakley, Tim Bowen, Rick Cothran, Jenni Creamer, Mark Dougherty, Matt Edwards, Penny Edwards, Stacey Frank, Adam Ghiloni, Scott Harvey, Glenn Hellenga, Linda Jameison, Tom Lawrence, Lynn Lewis, Chris Marino, Mandy Orzechowski, Sarah Shumpert, Brian Swords, Tracey Williams

Members Absent:       Tiffany Blackwell, Crystal McLaughlin

Other Attendees:       

Length of Meeting:     1.50 hours

The minutes of the October 25, 2016 meeting were approved as presented.

Galen welcomed Tom Lawrence to the group and welcomed Sarah Shumpert back to the group.

Jackie Blakley discussed Best Practices in using Student Reactions to Instruction to review the findings and to consider next steps.  She touched on each of the Team Recommendations. 

 

Team Recommendation #1

 

Continued use of the recently revised question set with periodic reviews of the survey questions to ensure relevance and alignment with institutional goals. In particular, as the High Impact EDGE is implemented across the College, additional items related to synthesizing knowledge across domains or disciplines will become more appropriate.

 

Discussion took place on whether this should become a project charter or a faculty-led workgroup. It was decided that it would be neither.  Since IE owns the instrument, it would be an administrative task of the IE department, with input from a Faculty Senate subcommittee.

 

Team Recommendation #2

 

Incorporation of the value of the My Focus Report into faculty development to encourage faculty to document what they are doing. The project team recommends that this effort be led by faculty.

Recommendation:  Professional development should incorporate the My Focus report into its offerings to encourage the development of a cross-divisional repository of best practices and a place to be reflective and to share ideas.  The HIPs team would not own this, but would be a resource.

 

HIPs Team:                              Craft reflection question

Faculty Senate:                        Determine how it’s deployed

Faculty Development:              Provide forums for discussion

 

 

 

 

Team Recommendation #3

 

The development of a pool of incentive practices that instructors can employ to encourage a high student response rate. The project team recommends that this effort be led by faculty.

Recommendation:  ALT select individuals for this.

 

Discussion about the student response rate and incentives to complete the reflection piece took place. The point was made that there is not an institutional position on incentives or guidance for individual faculty on what is or is not acceptable.

 

The group agreed that we need to ask the students if they value the survey.  We must have appropriate student feedback to make this worthwhile.  Need to follow up with students about how feedback was used.

 

Team Recommendation #4

 

Implement an instructor-added-questions feature that could allow individual instructors to include their own questions in the evaluation for their specific courses

 

This can happen right now. 

 

At this point, discussion took place on whether or not this should become a project charter, especially since the following topics need to be considered.

 

• Creation of reflective questions
• Document the benefits to faculty
• Cost benefit review
• Professional development piece.

 

The group agreed that a work group should develop a project charter.  Chris Marino, Jackie Blakley, and Penny Edwards will work on this charter.

 

Galen discussed the strategic plan.  He distributed the draft FY’18 strategic initiatives and asked the group to provide general observations about them.

 

• Some represent next steps as opposed to new.
• Some are operational rather than strategic.
• How do we measure?  Need good metrics to be able to show improvement.
• Some can be combined.
• Some overlap with existing activities or one another
• Need to demonstrate how they relate.
• Is the activity a deliverable of a project or does it need to be placed in an existing charter?
•  

The group discussed the need to prioritize the list, so that we are not putting the cart before the horse.  This needs to be introduced to employees, so that they can be thinking about it.

 

Galen gave the Professional Development Day update.  With our focus on under-resourced students, SC Thrive will be on campus to conduct a poverty simulation.  The goal is for all employees to attend this simulation.  With a maximum class size of 88, SC Thrive would have to run two concurrent sessions in the morning and the afternoon for everyone to be able to attend.  Unit-specific professional development would take place during the alternate session.  If SC Thrive and the logistics do not allow for two concurrent sessions, faculty will attend the simulation first.  Staff sessions would be scheduled very soon after.  Employee debrief sessions will take place, as well. 

 

If a unit has invited and external speaker, let Galen know so that he can schedule around that. Once details are finalized, Galen will work with the deans to determine the better time.

 

Announcements:

 

Galen:

 

The Adult Education/I-BEST program, with a cohort of 15 students, started today.  This is an excellent example of internal and external partners working together to benefit students.

 

Scott:

 

Administrative drops will happen next Wednesday.  Catalog training sessions will be scheduled very soon.

 

Matt:

 

• The new copiers have been installed and training will take place on the 11^th.  Additional copiers were purchased and strategically placed so that everyone can use them.  He thanked everyone for their patience. 
• A maintenance window calendar will be published soon.  Until then, e-mail announcements are being sent.   Employees can log into the service desk portal calendar to see what is being addressed.
• As the college moves to Windows 10, training will be available. 
• Image Now is being upgraded.  This upgrade will provide more functionality.
• Currently, IT is replacing computers in most labs and some desk tops.

 

Jackie:

 

Announced that Billy Carson is a new faculty member for CIT.  Chris McFarlin is the interim department head for Public Services.

 

Galen:

 

Noted Brian Swords’ new role as Director of Community Campuses.

 

Jenni:

 

Reported that spring enrollment is currently above the goal.  Some of our peers have significant decreases in enrollment.  Galen will send the group the Fall- to- Fall report provided by the System Office.

 

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

 

Recorded By: Anne Bryan

 

Next Meeting:             Tuesday, January 24, 2017, at 1:00, in RH 248

Service Excellence Team 2-10-17

SERVICE EXCELLENCE TEAM
Meeting Minutes
Date: February 10, 2017
Opening

The regular meeting of the SET was held in RH 245 on Friday, February 10, 2017. The meeting was called to order by Cara Hamilton at 10:00 a.m.

Present:  Cara Hamilton, Aida Laham, Kathy Brand, Lynn Lewis, Laura McClain, Lisa Anderson, Richard Parker

Absent: Scott Jaeschke
Celebrations:

·         Cara celebrated the Topping Off Ceremony for the new SSC.  She stated it was exciting to see students, faculty, staff and leadership there to celebrate, sign the beam, and be part of the SSC process.

·         Laura shared her students chose the Salvation Army as a needy local resource and collected over 750 items for donation. It was suggested that she send the information to Lisa Garrett for a story in Connections.

·         Cara shared Jon Gordon’s book The Energy Bus.  She read over his “10 Rules for the Ride of Your Life”, summarizing how this fits into the ideals of service excellence.

 Review Decision & Action Tracking from last meeting:

Action items were reviewed and updated from the last meeting (see tracking chart below).

Update for Sub teams:

Communication- Aida reported she is working with the vendor on the Tri-Day ordering process using the website.  Originally, since we were ordering in bulk, the site was not set up to offer the option of individuals or departments payments.  The website is under construction and Aida will keep us updated on its progress.  Aida stated she met with Lou Moritz and discussed the option of the bookstore stocking Tri-Day apparel. Currently, he does not want to commit to stocking apparel due to the slowness of sales and the upcoming move to the new SSC.  Cara suggested that if people ask for Tri-Day apparel in the bookstore that they guide them to the future website for ordering.

Talent Management: Lisa reported that 1) the 4^th session of supervisor training was full.  2) EPMS evaluations are to be done by March 15, 2017.  3)  The Wellness challenge has 23 teams with 115 people participating.  Visual board have been turned in for judging and will be displayed in the faculty/staff dining room or café.  The dining area is in the process of being cleaned up so there will be a space for employees to eat lunch during the construction and transitioning of buildings.  4) PD Day will be March 1^st with the faculty participating in the poverty simulation activities and staff registering for sessions.   Emails will be sent when the agendas are finalized.  Richard stated his concern about the poverty simulation taking place down at IBDC with students in the building.  Lisa confirmed all were aware that this was a sensitive topic and plans are to be mindful, understand the situations, and handle it in a positive way for all.  Cara suggested Jo Ann Avery of District 4 be used in the future as a speaker at PD day.  She has a background in wellness and diversity and is an excellent local resource to use.  Also suggested for PD days were Chick-fila business model, Publix business, and SPARK information sessions.  Cara also celebrated the mandatory compliance trainings in SPARK were completed by all except 2 employees. This shows the College is reinforcing the culture of accountability.

Recognition: Laura McClain reported her sub-group is in the final stages of planning for the Chick-Fila food truck recognition day. She will meet with her team once more before bringing the information before Executive staff on March 1^st.  She has planned for music, outside table setup, baskets with surveys, and will contact Lisa Garrett for photos.  Laura stated the Employee recognition committee has successfully merged with the SET Recognition sub-committee.  The 8 members met and are working on the online survey questions that will assist in measuring recognition.

Measurement: Scott emailed his report and we will discuss at our next meeting:

I’m on-track to have the pilots completed for the Service Level Agreements by the end of this month. This will result in the final version of the form being ready in March for a Summer 2017 rollout.

The feedback I’ve gotten so far from the pilot is that people are unsure of how to apply the iCARE standards to their daily work in specific, measurable ways. I’m interested in hearing from the SET members what they think we can do to get the whole campus involved in considering the iCARE standards more actively now as prep work for my service level conversations later.

Service Obstacle System- Richard reported his frustrations that there have been few LEAN submissions to date.  He stated he would be presenting to staff at the March PD day using an actual chosen process to work through with the group. He plans to meet with Galen DeHay to explore more options and feels LEAN will become more widespread with the better understanding of empowerment. Cara stated that LEAN is an institutional initiative and leaders must encourage involvement.  She gave examples of two processes that are currently being changed, local travel and the project charter processes, but realizes additional initiatives must be supported by College leadership.

Management Accountability: Cara shared the SET reflection results.  She was excited to see how far we have come changing the culture at the College. Discussion took place over what we still need to work on and what comes next.  Overall Cara was pleased with how far the College has come.

Academic – Member At Large:  Lynn Lewis stated she has followed up with Lisa Anderson regarding the Chick-Fila recommendation for a session at a PD day.

Wrap up:

                Review Next Steps for each SET:

                Confirm Next meeting – Friday, March 10, 2017 at 10:00am in RH 245     

Academic Leadership Team 10-25-16

Academic Leadership Team
October 25, 2016
1:00 pm
Ruby Hicks Hall, Room 248

Members Present:     Gayle Arries, Tiffany Blackwell, Jackie Blakley, Tim Bowen, Jenni Creamer, Mark Dougherty, Matt Edwards, Penny Edwards, Stacey Frank, Glenn Hellenga, Linda Jameison, Lynn Lewis, Chris Marino, Crystal McLaughlin, Sarah Shumpert, Brian Swords, Hap Wheeler

Members Absent:      Rick Cothran, Adam Ghiloni, Scott Harvey, Mandy Orzechowski, Tracey Williams

Other Attendees:       Cara Hamilton

Length of Meeting:   1.50 hours

The minutes of the September 27, 2016 meeting were approved as presented.

Following up on next steps, Cara Hamilton presented the revised Project Charter template.  The revised charter will help address implementation and close out issues.  After discussion, the following revisions were made:

·         A new section was added to create transparency.

·         Plans & Milestones – end the sentence at deliverables.  “A high-level timeline with significant project milestones, generally tied to deliverables.”

·         Implementation/Assessment Plan – Remove this section.

·         Total Cost – Add Institutional Research under Description, Other Costs

·         Reviewed By – Add a review by “Institutional Research (if applicable)”

·         Project Approved – Move to right before Project Summary/Evaluation/Next Steps

·         Project Summary/Evaluation – New section

·         Project Approved – New Section

·         Sponsor & Project Board Final Sign-off – New Section

·         Executive Staff Report-out – New Section

·         Executive Staff Final Sign-off  - New Section

Cara will make these changes and finalize the document.

Chris Marino gave the Student Characteristics Project Charter Update.  While the premise of this project charter was to serve and support other initiatives, the reality is that it got very complicated, very quickly, and could not possibly address every need.  He suggested withdrawing the Student Characteristics Project Charter and instead, providing support from the IR office once the research had been done and a specific question could be addressed.  He touched on the three needs/questions, reporting, end to end customer relationship management, and predictive analytics, and noted that no system can address all three.

The Student Characteristics Project will be withdrawn. The college will re-visit this project.  In the meantime, a group will be created to evaluate predictive analytics. 

It was noted that while the college has reports with a lot of very good data, we need a tool that will mesh all the reports.   Matt Edwards reported that IT is meeting with data custodians and is reviewing options to replace ISIS to help reduce the redundancy and some ad hoc reporting.

Team Leader Training will take place on November 2^nd.  It will be fairly interactive and will focus on 1) What a team leader does; 2) What a team leader is; and 3) Basic how to’s.    Tiffany Blackwell and Mark Dougherty will be added to the training group.

Galen gave a Multiple Measures update.  The Chief Academic Officers have agreed to use any combination of three ways to measure.

·         Use Accuplacer as the primary measure with a high and low range. 

·         GPA -  Data show that a high school GPA of 3.0 was 70+% predictive of college GPA of 2.5.  Our Placement Group is working on how to evaluate the high school GPA and is working on how to use multiple measures for placement.

·         ACT – Is currently used by a number of our sister colleges.  The English and Reading scores are very predictive of success.  The others are less so.

We will evaluate these measures to see which of them is successful and to help determine how to best place students.

Announcements:

Galen reported that Cathy Cole wanted to remind the members of the group to review Report 136 to help ensure that students are not misadvised.

Matt Edwards reminded the group of the regularly scheduled maintenance window on Friday from 2:00 – 8:00 p.m.

During her absence, Sarah Shumpert asked the members of the group to contact Leslie Salley for Curriculum issues, Amoena Norcross for QEP issues, and Richard Smith for BlackBoard issues. 

Jackie Blakley asked for clarification on revisions to the Programs at a Glance section of the catalog.  After discussion, it was agreed that:

·         It needs to be considered through the student’s lens

·         Assume that it is for full-time students

·         Only list programs that can be completed face-to-face at that campus.  Need a way to make students aware of program options.

Gayle Arries, Brian Swords, and Tim Bowen will work with Scott Harvey to determine a way to show the options.

Jackie mentioned that at the recent CRJ advisory committee meeting, the Anderson University representative asked about changing some of the 100-level courses to the 200-level so that AU could accept them.  Jackie will work with the Curriculum & Instructional Support Office to consider the options.

Mark Dougherty announced that Emma Campbell has joined the Student Development team.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Recorded By:             Anne Bryan

Next Meeting:            Tuesday, January 10, 2017