Challenge 3

Strengthening the Student Experience at All Levels.

Overview

Over the past decade, the University has focused considerable effort on strengthening the student experience at all levels.  Under the leadership of former Presidents Hasselmo and Yudof, the University launched a series of initiatives, many of which are now generating measurable improvements at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. 

More recently, through the strategic positioning process, the University continues to advance an agenda of improvement in the student experience and the assessment of learning.  President Bruininks has stated that

our [strategic planning] work…does not begin and end with a document or a few decisions.  We will create performance and outcomes standards against which we will continuously measure and improve our education, research, and outreach. 

Thus, the University envisions a culture change in teaching and learning that strengthens the student experience and acknowledges the necessity of continuous improvement at all levels. 

Within this framework, the University has set goals, identified benchmarks and measures, and begun to develop a genuine framework of learning assessment to analyze learner outcomes and determine strategies (e.g., policies and incentives) to steadily improve the quality of student academic achievement in the formal educational setting of the classroom, as well as in co-curricular programs and activities, residential life, and other opportunities outside the classroom. 

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2001:  Improving Our Graduation Rates

The Twin Cities campus has been at or near the bottom of its Big Ten public institution and national research university peer groups in terms of undergraduate retention and graduation rates.  In the mid-1990s, University leaders identified significant improvement in these rates as an essential component of the University’s ability to meet its strategic goals. 

The campus made modest progress during that decade, but improvement efforts accelerated in 2001 as a result of a critical University report, Improving Our Graduation Rates, produced by a campus-wide task force.

The task force – under the leadership of Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Craig Swan and now-Vice Provost for Student Affairs Jerry Rinehart – examined the reasons for low retention and graduation rates and developed specific recommendations for their improvement.  These recommendations, along with the previous efforts begun in the mid- to late-1990s, have now led to substantial improvements.

The task force’s final report was a significant turning point precipitating the University’s greater focus on strengthening the student experience. 

In reporting its findings, the task force identified four factors that diminished institutional performance on this key measure:

• Lack of clear and explicit institutional expectations.
• Lack of commitment and mechanisms to help students stay on track.
• Institutional barriers and lack of institutional incentives.
• Valuing access at the expense of student success.

The report argued “that the University must make a conscious, focused effort to address [these problems], for the sake of both the students and the institution.” 

More important, the report provided a comprehensive and systematic plan for improving graduation rates.   These recommendations, most of which have been implemented in the intervening years, are described below.

Communicating Clear and Explicit Institutional Expectations.  The task force noted a number of well-coordinated initiatives that were beginning to send a clear and consistent message to students about the University’s expectations of them. 

Included in these initiatives were:  the creation of more residential campus, implementation of a four-year graduation guarantee, and providing a more integrated approach to the first-year experience (e.g., new student convocation, freshman seminars, living-learning communities). 

But the task force called for additional initiatives to be implemented, including:  more timely and more easily available academic progress reports, communicating with commuting students and their parents about the academic risk factors of living at home, and providing prospective and admitted students with better information on financing a college education and the risks vs. benefits of working while attending college.

Making the Commitment to Help Students Stay on Track. The task force believed that University faculty, staff, and students did not understand adequately “the consequences – to the student and to the institution – of too many students taking too long to graduate.”

The task force argued that while the University culture placed high value on “providing students with maximum flexibility” this often led to students delaying or even foregoing the completion of their degree programs. 

The key to changing this institutional value, the task force asserted, resided in the active involvement and intervention of advisers in the colleges and departments and the implementation of four strategies to help students make better academic decisions:  full-year registration for freshmen, communication with students at critical points during each semester, mid-term grade reports and warnings, and more stringent policies for dropping or withdrawing from courses. 

Removing Institutional Barriers and Providing Incentives for Success. The task force pointed to the development of online registration, collegiate reviews of degree program requirements, and increased communication with students as positive steps toward removing barriers and providing incentives for student success. 

But the task force also recommended a broad range of other initiatives that would be needed to make further progress.  The most far-reaching of these were:  developing incentives for colleges to focus on graduation and retention, or sanctions if they failed to improve; developing additional incentives for timely degree completion and disincentives for students to drop out, stop out, or reduce their credit load; helping colleges identify students who may be at risk; increasing focus on junior- and senior-year retention; and increasing grant-based student aid to lessen students’ dependence on work.

Balancing Access with Success.  The task force advised that the University’s historic commitment to access needed to be balanced by assuring student success once admitted.  Specifically, the task force pointed to General College as

an important portal to the University, but despite many resounding successes, most of the students who come through that portal still do not graduate in six years….[A]s an institution, we need to come to grips with our identity and decide what proportion of our student body should be admitted through General College, and we also need to understand and accept the implications of those decisions and their effect on admissions practices, graduation rates and student success.

Conclusion.  In its concluding remarks, the task force observed that

the success of any of these interventions will depend in part on the institution’s willingness to take this issue seriously and continue to explore both the nuances of the problem (for example, more studies on specific issues such as students’ work behaviors) and the larger questions of institutional identity and focus….

If there is consensus that the University’s graduation and retention rates are a problem, then we must move at all levels – administration, faculty, staff, and students – to pursue solutions. 

If the members of the academic community do not perceive these numbers as problematic, then we must be able to explain to the public, to the legislature, to parents, and to students, why it is acceptable that the University graduates only slightly more than half of the students who begin here as freshmen.

We as a committee do not find this acceptable, and we hope others agree and are prepared to act.

In the years since the release of the Improving Our Graduation Rates report, the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities has implemented most of the task force’s recommendations. 

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Strategic Positioning

In 2005, the University’s strategic positioning efforts continue to drive the strengthening of the student experience at all levels.  As noted earlier in the self-study report, the first of five action strategies described in the University’s strategic positioning report is to “recruit, educate, challenge, and graduate outstanding students.” 

In furtherance of this strategy, President Bruininks has articulated four interrelated goals for student life and student learning: 

• improving access to the University and affordability for students,
• enhancing teaching and learning,
• promoting better progress and improved graduation rates,
• maintaining and improving student satisfaction levels.

The sections below discuss these four goals in the context of continual assessment and improvement of institutional performance.

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Improving Access and Affordability

The first of President Bruininks’s four goals is to improve access to the University and affordability for students.  He has stated unequivocally that the University’s quest to become one of the top three public research universities in the world will not compromise the University’s commitments to access and service. 

Competition for talented undergraduate, graduate and professional students is increasingly intense. While the increasing costs of higher education can have an impact on access, the University is determined not to let that happen.  University leaders are committed to maintaining access to students from all walks of life with scholarships and other financial support.  (Provost Sullivan expressed the University’s position on access and quality in a March 2005 op-ed column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.)

Access, Quality and Diversity:  The Twin Cities campus admits undergraduate students who have demonstrated the ability to complete a course of study and graduate, and who will be challenged by the rigor of instruction and research at the University.  Admission decisions are made on a competitive basis following a holistic review of qualitative and quantitative review factors.

Assessment.  The quality of incoming undergraduate students at the Twin Cities campus has improved significantly in the past decade.  These improvements occurred at the same time as the number of new freshmen increased by 40 percent. 

Over the past 10 years, there has been steady improvement in the percentage of entering students who graduated in the top 50 percent of their high school class.  And, since 2001, over 90 percent of freshmen have come from the top half of their high school class.  The average high school rank percentile of incoming freshmen increased from just under the 74th percentile in 1995 to nearly the 79th percentile in 2004.  Also from 1995 to 2004, the average ACT score increased from 23.9 to 25.0, an historic high for the Twin Cities campus. 

Despite these gains, including an 11 percentage point gain over the past five years in freshmen from the top 25 percent of their high school classes, the Twin Cities campus still ranks in the bottom third among its Association of American Universities (AAU) public institution peer group. 

Another key measure of quality is the diversity of the student body.  In the past decade, the percentage of freshmen of color has remained high (relative to the percentage of high school graduates), ranging from 17.4 percent in 1995 to 18.4 percent in the fall of 2004.   Enrollment increases among students of color have occurred primarily among Asian American and African American students. Among the 34 public Association of American Universities¿ campuses, the Twin Cities campus ranks 5th in enrolling students of color (download PDF), when the percentage of high school graduates who are students of color is a controlling factor.

Action:  Collegiate units are now required to include in their compacts trend analyses of new entering student quality as measured by test scores, high school rank, and diversity.  The University continues to make substantial investments in improving the student profile, enhancing the diversity of the student body, and providing access to students of limited means.

Internationalization:  The University is engaged in a range of internationally related education, research, and outreach activities that enhance the student experience and strengthen its position as a leading research and land-grant university. 

The University affirms the value of attracting students and scholars from throughout the world and providing opportunities for students to travel, study, and conduct research in other countries.  In doing so, the University follows these guiding principles:

• Understand, promote, and effectively engage an increasingly international society and economy.
• Be globally networked in support of the mission of the University.
• Help develop the international competitiveness of the state’s economy.
• Encourage students and staff who are actively engaged in international exchange, research, development, and study.
• Provide a welcoming and supportive environment for international scholars and students, fostering their development and ability to provide leadership to both their nation and internationally.

In following these principles, the University:  encourages learning abroad and conducting international research; engages foreign nationals as faculty; recruits foreign nationals as undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral appointees, and fellows; seeks to bring international issues and global perspectives to the curriculum; and builds relationships with international institutions. 

The University’s Office of International Programs sends more than 1,200 students each year to study in over 80 countries.  It administers about a dozen study abroad programs plus numerous global seminars and advises and supports a University international population of more than 4,500 people from over 130 countries – one of the nation’s largest.  (The University hosts the largest number of Chinese students and scholars in the United States – more than 1,300.) 

The Twin Cities campus has set a goal of having 50 percent of undergraduates participating in study abroad before they graduate.  The University’s Curriculum Integration Project is designed to help achieve that goal.  (see a detailed description of project outcomes and assessment; download PDF)

The University has more than 250 exchange agreements and many informal linkages with institutions around the world, which provide opportunities for students and faculty to study, conduct research, develop contacts, and interact with people of different cultures. 

Among public research institutions, the University ranks 14th in the number of students studying abroad. 

International Enrollment.  The number of international students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions decreased by 2.4 percent in 2003-04.  In contrast, the University showed a small increase from 2002-03 to 2003-04 in the number of international students enrolled.

The decline in international students enrolled in the U.S. has been attributed to several factors:  real and perceived difficulties in obtaining student visas (especially in technical fields); rising tuition costs; vigorous competition from other host countries; a wider range of educational opportunities in students’ home countries; and perceptions abroad that international students may no longer be welcome.

Of the 20 leading host states, only Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Ohio showed increases in foreign enrollments from 2002-03 to 2003-04.

Assessment:  The University ranks 21st among U.S. research institutions in the number of international students it attracts.  About 80 percent of these students are graduate and first-professional students. 

The University ranks 15th in the number of international scholars it attracts each year. 

The University ranks 14th in the number of students studying abroad from U.S. research institutions. 

In 2004, new graduate student enrollment increased by 1 percent over the previous year, helped, in part, by a 2 percent gain in new international student enrollment.  Enrollments increased despite decreased applications. 

Total applications dropped from 11,697 to 10,981 – a loss of 6 percent.  Even more pronounced was the 16 percent decrease in international applications, from 5,363 to 4,486.  Applications from U.S. citizens and permanent residents continued to increase, up 2.5 percent, as well as enrollments, which increased 0.5 percent.

The increase in international enrollment can be attributed to a 26 percent increase in new international enrollment in engineering and physical and mathematical sciences.  All of the other broad disciplinary categories of social sciences, health sciences, biological sciences, language, literature and the arts, education, and psychology recorded decreases in international enrollment ranging from 1 percent to 30 percent.  

Overall enrollment by disciplinary category ranged from an 8 percent decrease in education and psychology to a 7 percent increase in engineering and physical and mathematical sciences.

International students have made up an increasing proportion of applicants and matriculants, particularly, though not exclusively, in science and engineering.  This trend is reversing at the University and across the country because of greater difficulty in obtaining student visas since September 11, 2001 and because of increased competition with other countries for the best foreign students. 

Action:  As part of its strategic planning efforts, a University-wide task force is developing recommendations to enhance the institution’s position as an “international university.”

Affordability:  Students today pay an increasingly greater share of the cost of their education, in large part because of a long-term trend of reduced state investment.

To help ensure that rising tuition and fees do not become barriers to a University education, funding for scholarships was a priority in the last year of Campaign Minnesota (2004), and it remains a top priority post-campaign via strategic positioning:

• The President’s Promise of Tomorrow Scholarship drive aims to raise $150 million in private donations, whose earnings will be matched by the University for the benefit of students. 

• The new Founders Opportunity Scholarship ensures that all students receiving Pell and state grants will receive additional grant, scholarship, and work-study support to cover tuition and required fees.  It will complement the existing $12 million Partnership Grant program to make up the gap in funding between aid packages and tuition and fees.  When fully phased in, the two programs will serve approximately 8,000 students University-wide.

• The 21st Century Graduate Fellowship Endowment Fund matches gifts of $25,000 or more that are designated for graduate fellowships. 

The University also has begun to analyze institutional policies for opportunities to create incentives that result in cost savings to students.  In 2002, for example, the University restructured undergraduate tuition policy in favor of a tuition-banding strategy that provides an important incentive for timely graduation by making all credits above 13 per semester tuition-free.  A student who takes 15 credits a term and graduates in four years will save 20 percent in tuition as compared with a student who takes 12 credits a term and graduates in five years.

At the graduate level, similar incentives are being developed, including a FY 2005-06 salary and benefit increase for graduate assistants, an issue that had been identified by a University task force as critical to the University’s ability to compete for top graduate students.

Assessment:  Click here for a discussion of how University undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional tuition and fees compare with peer institutions.

Action:  The University continues to make substantial investments toward improving the affordability of a University degree and providing access to students of limited means.  Through a focus on learning assessment and improvements to the student experience, the University is also working to increase the value of a University degree.

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Teaching and Learning

President Bruininks’s second goal for strengthening the student experience is enhancing teaching and learning.  He has called on the University community to “dedicate more of our attention to the science of learning and apply it to our central obligation of education.”  The enhancement of teaching and learning is clustered in six areas:

• Learning Outcomes:  The Provost’s Council for Enhancing Student Learning has articulated a set of undergraduate learning outcomes the University expects its students to achieve during their experience on the Twin Cities campus and provide models for colleges, departments, and professional schools to articulate learning outcomes for their own disciplines.

• The Learning Environment:  The University is ensuring that all classrooms offer effective learning environments for students at all levels and continue to make major technology enhancements.

• Expanded Learning Communities:  New learning communities in residence halls, such as Biology House and foreign-language specific houses, have better connected students to the University and motivated their academic work. 

• Strengthening Honors Opportunities:  To continue to be attractive to the best and brightest students in Minnesota and elsewhere, the University is expanding honors opportunities as a strategic priority.

• Undergraduate Research Opportunities: The University is expanding opportunities for undergraduates for direct involvement in faculty research projects, particularly for students interested in health careers.

• Undergraduate Library Initiative: To help students navigate the explosion of online knowledge resources, University Libraries is working with vendors and others to develop integrative tools that will enable students to access all materials in a seamless, one-stop environment, starting fall semester, 2005.

The Provost’s Council for Enhancing Student Learning:  The University’s focus on improving student outcomes and student learning through the latter half of the 1990s rekindled efforts to address and advance learning assessment on an institution-wide basis.   

In 2002, then-Provost Bruininks held a campus-wide focused discussion on learning assessment and established an advisory body called the Twin Cities Learning Assessment Council to develop a campus-wide framework for learning assessment. 

In exploring its charge, the Council reviewed the institutional assessment plan drafted in 1995-96 and noted the University’s history of “false starts” with respect to implementing learning assessment on the Twin Cities campus. 

Statement of Foundations for Learning Assessment

A year later, and with greater clarity of perspective, the Twin Cities Learning Assessment Council was transformed into the Council for Enhancing Student Learning (CESL), an advisory body to the provost.  Its membership was expanded to include administrative leaders with campus-wide expertise to complement the academic representatives from each collegiate unit. 

The Council adopted the following mission statement:

The Council for Enhancing Student Learning seeks to enhance educational effectiveness in the colleges and schools, departments, and classrooms on the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. 

The Council works to achieve this mission by:

• Providing models, tools, and learning opportunities for faculty and students.

• Encouraging and supporting the use of data to enhance student learning, and conducting research in learning assessment.

• Sharing expertise across disciplines and among undergraduate, graduate, and professional education units.

The Council has developed a focus on institutional culture change and faculty development for best practices in learning assessment.  In 2003-04, it established ad hoc working groups on classroom and course assessment, curriculum assessment, assessment and technology, and academic research and advising. 

The working groups delivered a variety of accomplishments, including campus-wide workshops and symposia featuring national and local assessment experts, proposed global learning outcomes for all undergraduates (see below), and a statement on undergraduate academic and research advising.

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Proposed Undergraduate Learning Outcomes

Also over the past two years, Council leaders made presentations to various campus governance bodies and administrative groups, as well as at national assessment conferences. 

In a parallel effort, the Office of Student Affairs worked with students to develop a rubric of character-based student success outcomes that describes the developmental lifelong learning and citizenship characteristics all undergraduate students should develop and be able to demonstrate upon graduation (as shown below).

These outcomes have been distributed as bookmarks to over 10,000 students, faculty, and staff across the campus since October 2004.  In addition, presentations were made at the 2004 First Year Experience Conference on the Twin Cities campus and at the Council’s best practices symposium in April 2004 where guest speaker Peggy Maki referred to the outcomes material as an excellent example of the use of rubrics. 

Also, the outcomes have been incorporated into the framework for student engagement and civic leadership, an initiative affiliated with the Council on Public Engagement.

In addition, several units have embraced the outcomes and used them to improve their engagement with students.  Student Affairs division retreats have included exercises in which unit directors and staff consider how their programming and services assist in the development of these student outcomes. 

For example, the Study Abroad staff engaged students in developing an assessment rubric of outcomes from study abroad that provides examples of how the learning abroad experience contributes to student success outcomes (see below).  Further, Study Abroad and Student Affairs co-sponsored a workshop on “unpacking the study abroad experience” to develop expertise among advising staff in helping students reflect on and articulate their learning experiences in terms of these outcomes.

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Student Success Outcomes

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Learning Abroad Developmental Outcomes

The welcome sessions during new student orientation for all 5,000 incoming freshmen and their parents, led by the vice provosts, have been reorganized to reflect the University’s expectations that all students should engage in activities that help them develop and demonstrate characteristics and skills for academic and career success.  The outcomes are also included in student orientation materials.

In addition, new student orientation leaders have been trained to use follow-up activities focused on the outcomes in their small group sessions with freshmen.  New Student Weekend (attracting about 1,000 students each year) has been revised to incorporate leadership development and a focus on goal setting around the outcomes as well.   

The Twin Cities Student Unions recently completed a pilot project on student employment that incorporates the outcomes in the training and supervision of student workers.  Publicity about the success of this pilot has stimulated interest in several additional student employment venues.  Housing and Residential Life and University Dining Services surveyed student workers asking for their perspective on the extent to which their work helped them develop in these areas.

Responses from student workers indicate their perceptions that student employment makes positive contributions to the development of these skills and characteristics.  This information is being incorporated in a presentation which will be part of a campus-wide conference in October 2005 on using student outcomes across the living and learning experience on campus. 

Under development is an ePortfolio component that will allow students to document and demonstrate their progress and attainment of the outcomes.  Pilot templates will be available fall 2005.  Also beginning fall 2005, a new alumni tracking survey will ask respondents to indicate the extent to which key University curricular and developmental outcomes are important to their current professional and personal life, and were impacted by their experience as a University undergraduate.

Assessment:  Council members have learned a great deal in the past three years about the challenges in deploying a campus-wide implementation of learning assessment on a comprehensive public campus such as the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.  The Council has reported to three different provosts in four years, but with the hiring of a vice provost for faculty and academic affairs in July 2005, now has a specific administrative leader to champion the cause on a day-to-day basis. 

While leadership transitions and the lack of vocal or consistent leadership can be detrimental to the long-term viability of learning assessment, the University’s assessment effort was not impacted significantly, primarily because the Council was a stable body that was able to maintain the focus on assessment through the transitions. 

Communication is another considerable challenge on a campus of this size; in particular, assessment activities, programs, and efforts have developed in a highly decentralized organizational environment and been driven by units of all kinds for a variety of reasons. 

From a central administrative perspective, a primary challenge has been self-discovery.  A multitude of exemplary assessment models, programs, and practices implemented across the Twin Cities campus illustrate a successful history of demonstrated learning assessment at the University.  Many of the examples are significant in scope, duration, and impact, such as the TEL Council (to promote technology-enhanced learning), the Center for Teaching and Learning Services, and the Center for Writing. 

The Council continues to discover cutting-edge programs and best practices in assessment in academic units and among faculty across campus.  The challenge is to find and connect the leading and early adopters, develop a communication network, and knit the individual programs and projects into a comprehensive, comprehensible whole to effect systemic improvement. 

Future Action:  Over the next year, the Council will draw significant direction from the various task force reports emerging from the University’s strategic positioning process, most notably the task forces on student support, writing, honors, faculty culture, diversity, and redesign of various collegiate units. 

The Council will continue its work to define and confirm global learning outcomes for all undergraduate students, and will begin a similar process to identify global learning outcomes for graduate and professional students.  The Council also will work to integrate the expected academic outcomes of the classroom with the developmental outcomes of the student experience as a whole.   

The Council must also determine how to more fully engage students in the planning for and implementation of learning assessment and how to more actively engage students at large in sharing the responsibility for improving the quality of their teaching and learning relationships. 

Strengthening the student experience at all levels remains a work in progress.  Many units and programs across campus are making contributions to significant institutional progress through assessment-based developmental programs, grant-funded projects, etc.  Some of the most important programs are described below.

Center for Teaching and Learning Services:  The Center works to enhance the culture of teaching and learning on the Twin Cities campus.  It partners with colleges, departments, and individuals to improve student learning and participates in initiatives that foster environments in which diverse teachers and learners can excel. 

Each year, hundreds of tenured and non-tenured faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students participate in Center programs that, in aggregate, help create an environment in which teaching, learning, and assessment are highly valued.  The Center’s comprehensive services range from individual consulting to intensive workshops to year-long programming for new and experienced faculty, instructional staff, graduate students, and administrators throughout their teaching careers. 

The Center also provides on-line tutorials, workshops, and publications.  A recent example is the publication, “Stories of Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota,” a project of the 2004-05 Senior Teaching Fellows intended to provide a personal glimpse into teaching and learning at the University from the perspective of faculty, teaching assistants, and students.

One program that focuses on assessment is the Teaching Large Courses project.  Faculty who teach 12 large-enrollment courses are working together over the next three years, under a grant from the Bush Foundation, to improve the quality of large-enrollment courses.   Identified problems with large enrollment courses include a higher dropout rate, a larger proportion of low grades or incompletes, and more student complaints. 

In this grant program, faculty are planning and implementing major revisions of these courses, including the infusion of active learning strategies and many forms of technology, to improve course quality.  Participants are carefully documenting the faculty development process, modifications to the courses, and the results linked to these modified courses.  In addition, the grant supports various dissemination activities, such as conferences and publications, so others within and outside the University community can learn from the improvements made.

Some of the Center’s other programs and services include:

• Online “Ask a Quick Teaching Question”
• Assessment of Learning
• Teaching Consultations
• Teaching Enrichment Workshops
• Online Workshops
• Customized Workshops
• Preparing Future Faculty Program
• International TA Program
• Early Career Teaching Program
• Mid-Career Teaching Program
• Senior Teaching Fellows Program
• Making Meaning of a Life in Teaching
• Multi-Cultural Teaching-Learning Program
• Internationalizing the Curriculum
• Innovative Teaching with Technology

Academy members provide leadership to the University, serving as mentors, advisers, and spokespersons for the University’s teaching mission.

The Academy also contributes to faculty development through an annual fall retreat for its members and a biennial teaching and learning conference open to all University tenured and non-tenured faculty, adjunct faculty, and teaching assistants.  Both of these events include a participant evaluation component to help the Academy prioritize and plan future programs. 

In addition to the awarding of these prestigious awards, the Academy is currently engaged in several assessment efforts:

• exploring the policies and procedures for awarding merit pay,
• providing better information and access for undergraduate research opportunities,
• developing training modules for Academy members to conduct focus groups with students to elicit their suggestions regarding the qualities of positive interactions with faculty,
• exploring the impact of technology on teaching and learning, and initiating a small-grants program for Academy members to support innovative, collaborative teaching and learning initiatives.

Academic Program Review and Approval: The University uses a standard set of criteria to review proposals for new or changed academic programs.  The criteria parallel those used in the University's periodic review of collegiate and departmental academic and administrative units.  In addition to these criteria, proposals for graduate degree and certificate programs undergo rigorous review by the Graduate School’s discipline-based Policy and Review Councils. 

The review and approval process underwent substantive revision in 2003, at which time specific questions relative to program quality and assessment were added to the required proposal narrative: 

• What are the learning outcomes for the program?
• How will the outcomes be measured? How often?
• How, when, and by whom will program quality be measured?
• How will the college, the department, and program instructors continue to improve the teaching and learning in this program?
• Is the program subject to review by a specialized accreditation agency? If yes, what agency and what is the review cycle?
• How, if at all, will the program address the University's diversity goals, e.g., student and faculty recruitment, curriculum, etc.?

Starting in late 2005, proposals for new and changed academic programs will be part of the Web-based Graduation Planner, which will include a real-time database of all undergraduate (and eventually graduate and first-professional) programs and requirements.

Curriculum Revision:  Historically, the University, like most institutions, has revised curricula on an irregular basis following non-standardized processes. However, the 1996-97 conversion from quarters to semesters saw a substantial amount of curriculum revision undertaken throughout the University. And now, as the University implements the structural re-design of several academic units, as part of its strategic positioning efforts, it will also develop a more comprehensive framework to help units address issues of curriculum revision.

For example, biology has become the central sci-ence early in the 21st century and more closely aligned with the physical science, engineering, mathematical, and computational disciplines. Ac-cordingly, the College of Biological Sciences has established a curriculum task force to update the undergraduate curriculum and more effectively reach and engage its diverse student audiences.

The task force is currently working on proposals to:  1) create new courses to serve non-science majors; 2) adapt a semester-long introductory biology course for Institute of Technology majors; 3) create a year-long biology majors course that includes inquiry-based labs and provides a foundation of knowledge and skills needed for success in upper-division courses. 

Undergraduate Research (UROP):  The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, housed in the Graduate School, is designed to give undergraduate students and faculty members the opportunity to work together on research, scholarly, or creative activities.

Started in 1985, this competitive program provides approximately 450 students a year with financial support in the form of a stipend (up to $1,400) and/or an expense allowance (up to $300) while they assist with a faculty member’s work or carry out projects of their own.  Current goals of the program include increasing the number of participants up to 1,000 each year, increasing the number of cross-disciplinary projects, and increasing the number of students working with faculty in the Academic Health Center.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program has produced several positive trends in the past years.  The number of applicants has been steadily rising from 382 10 years ago to a new high of 554 in 2004-2005.  The biggest increases on the Twin Cities campus have been in the Institute of Technology.  Additionally, the number of students doing cross-college projects (where the faculty sponsor and student are in different colleges) has also been increasing significantly.  An increasing number of students are doing research with Academic Health Center faculty, and larger numbers of freshmen have been applying in the past few years.

Each student and faculty participant is asked to complete an evaluation at the end of the project. The student is also required to write a short final report assessing the research and his/her experience with the program.  The program has been formally reviewed several times in the past and is currently under review by the Task Force on Undergraduate Research.  The task force report will be completed in late 2005.  Student and faculty evaluations of the program are almost always positive and anecdotal evidence points to an undergraduate research experience as a significant element in the overall undergraduate experience.

Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate:  The University is participating in the Carnegie Foundation’s national initiative focused on improving doctoral education. The initiative is a multi-year research and action project to support departments’ efforts to more purposefully structure their doctoral programs. 

According to the program statement, “The initiative has three interacting elements:  a conceptual analysis of doctoral education, design experiments in departments, and research and dissemination.”

Six fields are being studied, with the University partnering in two:  history and neurosciences.  The history initiative’s purpose is to make the Ph.D. program more efficiently focused on student progress to the degree, through better financial support and more clearly defined program requirements.  In neuroscience, the effort is to understand better the goals and scope of Ph.D. education in this broad, rapidly evolving discipline.

Carlson School of Management’s Office of Learning Excellence: The mission of this office is to establish learning excellence as a hallmark of Carlson School educational programs. Faculty, program leaders, staff, and students can access resources and assistance to develop and implement educational best practices and the appropriate supporting instructional technologies that enhance learning within the Carlson School, including development of the Learning Management System, instructional development and consultation, instructional media development, and workshops and seminars.

Center for Writing: The Center supports the University’s mission to improve writing across the curriculum in a more comprehensive way: it works directly with students learning to write, it supports instructors integrating writing into their courses, and it sponsors research into the theories and practices of writing, rhetoric, and literacy.  The Center will be deeply involved in the new strategic initiative focused on writing.

Digital Media Center:  The Center collaborates with collegiate and other central support units to promote the effective use of educational technologies and to support faculty members who use these technologies to improve teaching and learning.  The Center’s Web site is a rich repository of online resources, and includes self-assessment activities and links to many University initiatives for technology-enhanced learning.

Nature of Life Program:  This program offers incoming freshmen in the College of Biological Sciences the opportunity to live and study in small groups with faculty and student peers for three days at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota.  The core experience includes participation in three intensive, small-group seminars.  Participants also learn about the resources available to students and get the chance to collaborate with peers, student mentors, and faculty in constructing a community of scholars.  Through this one-credit course, students form relationships that help sustain them through their undergraduate careers.  During the fall semester, students complete several short reflective essays and attend three additional events that focus on academic and career planning success.

Health Care Education Innovations:  Changes in health care compel advances in the ways universities educate health professionals. The Academic Health Center’s Office of Education collaborates with AHC faculty and members of the Minnesota health-care community to introduce innovations in education by helping faculty, students, staff, and administrators develop new skills, cross traditional boundaries between the health profession schools, and work in diverse, community-based settings.  Some of these innovative programs include:

• Learning Commons.  The Academic Health Center’s Learning Commons offers health professions faculty a place to learn about and develop new ways of teaching – especially those supported by information and educational technologies.  For students and residents, the Learning Commons is a place to practice new ways of learning – such as clinical decision-making, problem-based learning, and evidence-based practice – and to use information acquisition skills and techniques.

• Faculty Summer Camp Program. In 2005, the Academic Health Center’s Office of Education and the Bio-Medical Library offered a series of faculty workshops on clinical decision-making and technology-enhanced learning for faculty and staff in all health professions.

• Interprofessional Education and Resource Center.  Opened in 2003, the Center provides facilities and services for assessing students’ clinical skills and learning outcomes.  The Center offers faculty the opportunity to prepare students for a professional world under simulated situations before going into practice settings.  Center staff  assist faculty and students by: assessing students’ clinical skills, providing education development in student outcomes assessment, and providing support and development for interdisciplinary education in order to strengthen the health care workforce.

Additional programs are making major contributions and are described in greater detail elsewhere in this document, including Orientation & First Year Programs, University Libraries, Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), and the Graduation Planner.

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Improving Academic Progress

President Bruininks’s third goal related to enhancing University students’ experience is promoting better academic progress and, thus, improving graduation rates.  Timely graduation serves students better by providing a more intense, focused academic experience, and it serves the institution by maximizing the efficient use of resources, such as freeing up valuable class openings for other students.

The most dramatic change related to retention and graduation rates has been the requirement that students take at least 13 credits each semester unless they have permission to take a reduced credit load. 

Coupled with the restructuring of tuition, this policy has had encouraging results in the first three years of its four-year implementation schedule.  The University has also made significant improvements in course availability for students, guaranteeing that critical first-year courses are available to freshmen. 

Advising:  Good academic advising has been characterized as a great challenge at large institutions, and, when done well, even the best students report particular appreciation of advising and mentoring contacts.  One of advisors’ primary goals is to inspire and cultivate a thought process that requires students to relate their academic work to their personal lives and career goals.  

In 1991, the University’s Task Force on Liberal Education recommended “that the University develop a comprehensive, campus-wide strategy for improving academic advising, especially in relation to liberal education outcomes.”  Among the essential attitudes that the task force identified as outcomes for a liberally educated person at a major research university was “capacity for gaining perspective on one’s own life.” 

This recommendation is no less compelling now than it was nearly 15 years ago.  The flexibility, choice, and complexity available at the University are among its best features, but students often need assistance in making sense of the options.  Over the past decade the University has made major investments in advising and support services that focus on delivering meaningful information to students when and how it is most relevant and useful. 

The University seeks to expand those investments through its strategic positioning initiatives. As Provost Sullivan noted in the academic strategic positioning task force’s report, “Strengthening academic support and advising services campus-wide will better position the University to fulfill its historical commitment to access as a renewed commitment to educational attainment, a mission better fitting the needs of the increasingly diverse student body of the 21st century…”   To this end, the University is working to align organizational structures and institutional advising practices.

Assessment:  The past decade has shown steady and marked improvement in retention rates.  The most recent first-year retention rate of 86.3 percent is the highest ever since the University began measuring retention rates; second-year retention stands at 77.0 percent; and third-year retention at 72.7 percent. 

Retention rates for students of color also have risen to their highest levels in the past decade.  Although still in the lower ranks of its AAU public university peer group, the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities has made substantial gains.   

Action:  The First-Year Experience Project, launched in 1998, seeks to improve the undergraduate experience and support learning inside and outside the classroom.  The project’s primary goals are to improve retention and graduation rates and to increase student satisfaction with their college experience.  Specific initiatives instituted include:

• Freshman Seminars.  Over 115 seminars, enrolling about 1,700 students, were offered in fall 2004 across a wide variety of disciplines. 
• New Student Orientation.  A completely restructured orientation program now reaches all new freshmen and many of their parents.  Over 5,500 students participated in orientation activities preceding the fall 2004 semester; 825 students participated in New Student Weekend, which focuses on leadership development and student success goal-setting.  These activities focus on the University’s expectations that all students should engage in activities that help them develop and demonstrate characteristics and skills associated with both academic and career success.  (See “Student Success Outcomes” table.)
• Parent Program.  This program provides communication between the University and students’ parents in order to support student success and promote an appropriate role for parents within the campus community.  Nearly 4,300 parents participated in parent orientation activities preceding the fall 2004 semester.
• Transfer Students.  Orientation activities specifically for transfer students and their parents are held prior to the start of classes each fall.  More than 1,600 students and nearly 300 parents participated in 2004.
• Convocation.  Reinstituted in 1999, about 4,000 students attended convocation-related activities in fall 2004.
• Living/Learning Communities.  In fall 2004, 850 students participated in 21 living/learning communities in the residence halls.
• Residential Life.  To help improve students¿ educational experience, the University has placed a high priority on providing more and better on-campus housing. Investments in improving the undergraduate experience and campus life have made living closer to campus more attrac-tive for students. Almost 5,000 new beds have been added over the past dec-ade by the University and private developers. Over 77 percent of first-year students now live on campus, up from 72 percent in 1998 (22.6 percent of all undergraduate students reside on campus). A 2003 study showed that first-year students who lived on campus had a weighted-average GPA of 3.12 compared to an average GPA of 2.86 for students who lived off-campus.

These initiatives seem to have contributed to the improvement in retention rates.  One initiative in particular, freshmen seminars, is worthy of mention.  Freshman seminar participation does seem to contribute not only to higher grade-point averages but also to higher retention rates. 

Since 1998, more than 225 faculty members have taught at least one freshman seminar.  During that time, the number of freshman seminars has grown from 20 to more than 125. 

Over the past five years, the groups of students who took a freshman seminar have had higher grade point averages and higher retention rates and four- and five-year graduation rates than other students.  This holds true whether the data are analyzed by gender, ethnicity, geographic location, ACT score, or high school class rank. 

Assessment of how well all of these First-Year Experience initiatives are meeting their objectives and contributing to the achievement of retention, graduation, and student satisfaction goals is ongoing.

Undergraduate Graduation Rates:  The Twin Cities campus has set ambitious goals to improve its graduation rates from their historically low levels.  The 2012 goals are:  four-year graduation rate of 50 percent, five-year rate of 70 percent, and six-year rate of 75 percent.

Assessment:  All graduation rates have improved substantially over the last seven to nine years: four-year rates increased by 17.1 percentage points to 32.3 percent, five-year rates by 19.4 percentage points to 56.0 percent, and six-year rates by 11.9 percentage points to 56.9 percent.  

During the same time period, graduation rates for students of color showed significant gains, but still lagged behind these overall graduation rates.  During the nine-year period:  four-year rates improved 7.2 percentage points to 20.8 percent, five-year rates by 17.7 percentage points to 42.3 percent, and six-year rates by 14.7 percentage points to 42.1 percent. 

Among its Association of American Universities peer group, the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities still ranks at or near the bottom of this group in graduation rates (also see additional figure regarding 4, 5, and 6-year graduation rates), but with continued improvement efforts, as described above, there is every expectation that the University’s standing will improve. 

Action: The Twin Cities campus will continue its intensive efforts to improve graduation rates through the range of programs outlined above as well as other initiatives emerging from the University’s strategic positioning efforts.

Graduate/Professional Completion Rates:  The timely completion of degrees is as important at the graduate level as it is at the undergraduate level.  The University tracks this measure as the “median elapsed time to degree,” which is calculated as the number of years from the start of a student’s first term in the Graduate School (regardless of subsequent changes of major or degree objective) until the degree is conferred.

One key measure of a research university’s productivity is the number of graduate degrees, particularly the doctoral degree, it confers each year.  The University’s performance is in line with other leading research universities.  Graduate students at the University take slightly longer to earn their master’s degrees than they did five years ago, while doctoral students take about half a year less than they did five years ago.

Assessment:  The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities is among the leading producers of doctorates nationwide.  The University currently ranks 11th among public and private research universities nationally and 9th among public research universities. 

However, despite a national decline in doctoral degrees conferred over the past five years, the University’s performance has declined more sharply (23.2 percent) than the average decline of other top-10 public and private research universities in this category (9.4 percent) and the average decline of top-10 public research universities only (8.0 percent). 

Action:  The University is participating in a national study by the Council of Graduate Schools to identify factors leading to this decline.  The project’s goal is to address the issues of completion and attrition in Ph.D. education and test those practices that the graduate community believes will result in higher completion rates.

Averaged over institutions and disciplines, only about 50 percent of those students who begin a Ph.D. program actually complete the degree. 

The University is working with 15 graduate programs (eight in sciences, math, and engineering; seven in liberal arts and humanities) to gather and report data on completion and attrition, and to test intervention strategies (e.g., better orientation and mentoring, clearer program rules, exit interviews) that will improve completion.  Results will be shared nationally among research and project partners, with the hope of developing a set of best practices.

In addition, the University is undertaking research of its own on such factors as time-to-degree, financial issues, graduate student advising, and housing.

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Student Satisfaction Levels

The fourth of President Bruininks’s goals is to maintain and improve student satisfaction levels.  Satisfaction indicators rose during the last decade and remain at high rates.  Students are most satisfied when they are engaged with the learning experience and connected to the University in meaningful ways.

Assessment.  The results of the 2005 undergraduate SES survey show overall improvement in nearly all areas over the results for previous years. Overall satisfaction levels matched previous highs and more students than ever indicated they would enroll at the University if given the chance to do it over again.  (Student survey results one and two.)   

Students were most pleased with the physical environment of the campus and the quality of the academic programs.  They were least satisfied with the cost of attendance, class size, and quality of advising. 

The most recent results, from a survey of graduating seniors, suggest that student satisfaction continues to increase on the Twin Cities campus.

Action. The Student Experiences Survey is administered every other year, with the next survey scheduled for 2005.  As in previous years, the results will be widely shared and follow-up work conducted so that institutional performance improvement can be achieved. (download PDF)

Graduate/Professional Student Satisfaction:  The graduate and professional student experi-ences survey has been administered every other year since 1997. The most recent survey in 2005 showed that satisfaction levels have increased on nearly all measures since 1997. This may be due to the improvement of physical facilities and the greater attention being paid to improving the quality of the graduate stu-dent experience. The survey will be administered again in 2007. (Student survey results one and two.)

In addition, the Academic Health Center's Office of Education is entirely focused on improving education and student learning and on assessing outcomes.

Technology-Enhanced Improvement Efforts: The University is committed to making as many services, such as financial aid and registration, as easy and seamless for students as it can.  In fall 2003, the University introduced e-pay and e-bill, allowing the elimination of mailed paper bills and the payment of bills online.  This system won the Educause Excellence in Administrative Information Systems 2002 Award. A Web project to give students more information and more control over their financial aid packages was introduced in 2004.

The MyU Portal is a digital gateway to the University that is geared, in part, to improve the student experience and increase student satisfaction.  Because of the central authentication system, the portal can be customized to each student’s unique identity in the University.  The Class of 2009 portal view, for example, provides a special view to each incoming student, whom it recognizes by name and to whom it can provide personalized data ranging from an individual calendar, to grant and human resource information, to direct links to the student’s advisor. 

Finally, the online Graduation Planner, scheduled for implementation in late 2005, will give students detailed information about the sequence of courses necessary for each major and allow students to develop individualized graduation plans.  In addition, the Graduation Planner will give advisors more timely and accurate indications of student progress toward graduation.

Challenge Two  |  Challenge Four

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