Common Challenges & Potential Solutions

Strengths

• • There is a strong sense of mission and faculty and the administration are interested in developing a national and international reputation for excellence in teaching, learning, scholarship and student success.

  • Faculty and staff are passionate about developing the whole student and creating responsible citizens who are prepared for leadership. They see each other as partners in this development and recognize that important learning and personal development occurs both within and outside of formal courses.

  • Instructors are open to new teaching and delivery methods as long as they are based on current education literature and well-tested best practices.

  • The culture of the university is characterized by:

    • Entrepreneurship - the lessons learned from failure are celebrated nearly as much as successful outcomes.  

    • Change is accepted as a foundation for maintaining a vibrant and healthy organization.  

    • There is a sense of openness and accountability about the decision making and resource allocation processes.

    • Shared governance - the faculty/staff senate is a strong and effective organization that works collaboratively with the university administration for the betterment of the institution.

  • The scholarship of teaching and learning is equally as valued as disciplinary based scholarship.

  • The university has a healthy revenues or an endowment which can be used strategically to invest in developing new or strengthening existing academic programs that are justified by good market data and business plans.

Weaknesses

• • Faculty feel there is a disconnect between daily expectations and the institutional reward system.

  • Faculty and chairs feel the tenure and promotion process forces them into a mold of faculty achievement that is based on outdated values and is too inflexible to meet the needs of the institution, the dynamically changing demands on the university, and the diversity of faculty talents and interests.

  • Instructors feel that the course evaluation process is a popularity contest and as such there is pressure to give good grades to get high ratings. Students feel the process is not helpful to them as it occurs at the end of the semester and thus does not affect their experience within the courses in which they are currently enrolled.

  • Instructors are frustrated by the range of academic preparation within the students entering their classes.

  • Students are unsure about what prior knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the courses they are about to undertake.

  • Students are unclear about what they are expected to achieve in some of their courses. Some courses do not have clearly defined learning outcomes and student success is determined by how quickly they can figure out the expectations and testing style of the instructor.

  • Students have no access prior to enrollment to documents, such as course syllabi, that explain the purpose, difficulty level, and content of the course.

  • Students see each course as a hurdle to be overcome and promptly forget most of the course material as soon as the final exam is complete. 

  • Students and faculty are unclear about the learning outcomes of some of the majors and minors and how the courses hang together into a cohesive program.

  • Course, program and departmental assessment are misunderstood processes that some faculty feel are an administrative attempt to evaluate them and their departments.

  • The general education program had been designed by an ad-hoc committee 20 years ago and since it is delivered by multiple departments, no single organization has ongoing responsibility for monitoring or maintaining it. As a result requirements are outdated and unwieldy.

  • Instructor classroom assignments are based nearly exclusively on course enrollments and do not meet the pedagogical needs of the course.

  • Teaching is still considered an activity that occurs behind closed doors with little peer observation.

Opportunities

• • The university has strong connections with regional high schools providing most of the freshman students to UU and articulation agreements with local community colleges from which most of the transfer students originate. Opportunities exist for a tighter coordination of the K through 20 pipeline.

  • The university is part of a system or collaborates with other regional universities to deliver cross listed programs. These increase the diversity of academic programs at all the campuses and provide a greater choice to the students. These institutions also share resources regionally such as books and journals within their libraries.

  • The university has strong connections with employers of its graduates, local charities and non-profit organizations. Experiential and service learning opportunities are plentiful.

 Threats

• • A national climate is developing that questions the return on investment for higher education. Liberal education in particular is under attack for not preparing students for specific careers.

  • State funding for state and state-related institutions is in significant decline.

  • Expectations of our educational system are changing and external vigilance and assessment is increasing.

  • The world is shrinking and national and international markets are becoming more accessible - including competition for U.S. student from foreign universities. For institutions to thrive they must have a place in this market. For profit companies already have a strong and growing market share within the United States and other countries, especially China, are investing heavily in this sector.

White Papers

In response to the data contained in the SWOT analysis the strategic planning steering committee developed the following series of white papers for work-groups to address and develop recommendations for action. They were designed to catalyze discussion and generate feedback and each was assigned to a multi-disciplinary committee with members from academic affairs, IT, student affairs, the student body and other stakeholders as appropriate.

• Faculty Values

  • Re-Engineering How Students and Universities Report Student Achievement

  • Evaluating and Assessing Student Readiness for Courses

  • Assessing and Evaluating Teaching and Courses

  • Opening the Door on Teaching

  • The Internal Accreditation/Quality Improvement Process

  • General Education: Program Design and Assessment

  • Improving Faculty Support and the Development Process for Teaching

  • Providing Students with the Information They Need to Choose Appropriate Courses and Programs

  • Designing and Managing Learning Spaces to Encourage and Support Pedagogical Change

  • Integrating International Experiences Into the Curriculum

  • Integrated Academic Support Services

  • Improving Student Success Though Testing

  • Learner Relationship Management and Lifelong Learning