NOTE: At times, issues of confidentiality may require that some items discussed in meetings be excluded from these minutes.

ALC MEMBERS: Charles Bachman, Tom Ball, Bill Barnes, Richard Bennett, David Caudill, Lance Crimm, Tom Currin, Venu Dasigi, Ameen Farooq, Alan Gabrielli, Steven Hamrick, Bob Harbort, Ruston Hunt, Andrew McMorran, Joyce Mills, Julie Newell, Mark Nunes, Jeff Orr, Nikki Palamiotis, Phil Patterson, Dawn Ramsey, Jeffrey Ray, Nancy Reichert, Han Reichgelt, Ronny Richardson, Khalid Siddiqi, Denise Stover, John Sweigart, Zvi Szafran, Andy Wang, and Tim Zeigler

MEMBERS ABSENT: Denise Stover

GUESTS:

Item 1: Updates

Insurance rates have increased for faculty and staff liability and on facilities, and will result in a cost of approximately $250,000 to the University.
The Psychology proposal will be on the October 2007 Board of Regents agenda.
Regional Partnerships – SPSU delegation has been invited to Albany Tech to discuss potentially offering engineering technology programs there. We’ve also been approached by Coosa Valley for a 2+2 program.
Tom Currin is working with departments on the development of an evening program in engineering. Dr. Szafran will be meeting with Kennesaw soon to discuss a joint education degree.
The Academic Planning and Academic Steering Committees have met. Dr. Szafran encouraged all to read the minutes and to contact any committee member if there are questions. Major goals have been suggested.
The Board of Regents is hosting an Administrators Workshop on November 1 & 2. Dr. Szafran will send a list of attendees from SPSU to the System Office.
Several new degrees are in the planning stages: accounting, political science, architecture masters degree, non-traditional fuels degree, instructional design, etc.
A group from SPSU went to the BoR to present a proposal from the Office of Continuing Education to do Six Sigma training statewide.
Faculty in IT received an NSF grant.

Item 2: SACS

Dr. Szafran gave the URL for the SACS website containing “works in progress” of the must statements. He also sent out email from Rob Whitaker regarding North Georgia College’s SACS website that may be useful. He also emailed all faculty requesting electronic copies of their CV’s. Academic Affairs is collecting vitae and transcripts from all faculty.

Item 3: Presidential Initiative to Improve Graduation and Retention Rates

Dr. Szafran distributed a 1-page summary of an article emailed to the Council earlier on improving graduation and retention rates. The directive contained four initiatives and solicited the following comments from the Council:

Retention issues seem to focus on courses and departments and does not address sense of place, such as financial aid, food service, bookstore, housing, and other real issues that may cause students to leave.
We deal with a large number of transfer students which should be treated differently than incoming freshmen.
There’s a presumption of retention problems but no student feedback such as exit interviews, etc. Dr. Szafran saw a document that shows of the last 250 who left SPSU, 35 went to Georgia Tech, 15 went to UGA, 78 went to KSU and 30-35 went to Georgia Highlands and Georgia Perimeter. We are able to track students who transfer.
Hamrick stated that we do surveys every spring of why students did not return and that the results are in Dr. Koger’s office. Surveys are not always reliable as some students may not be forthcoming about the real reason for withdrawing.

Specific comments on the first initiative – First Year Experience

There’s a problem with the summer course offerings that restrict summer programs for graduating high school students.
Dr. Szafran responded that we do offer 5-week classes.
There needs to be more publicity for these 5-week classes as they are hard to fill.
Need to examine the demand for these 5-week courses.
The 5-week courses are probably not a good choice for beginning freshmen to take as they are accelerated
We should target high school students and encourage them to enter in the summer
It’s hard to cover all the material in 5 weeks and hard to nurture new students. Would require more attention from the faculty and more hands on than normal.
Only seven students registered for the last 5-week math courses. Dr. Szafran agreed to support these small classes if the faculty want to teach them.
Have mandatory first year program that includes heavy advising, study skills enhancement, etc.
Have orientation courses – most departments have orientation to the discipline but not to the college. Should we have a coordinated effort campus-wide? We need to have orientation courses (SPSU 1001) available at the first of the semester and make required for all new students.
Establish first year there – have planned programs including outside school programs that students would be required to attend.
Academic Affairs is only a small part of first year experience – we need to look at other reasons why students leave and address those.

Dr. Szafran summarized points agreed on by the Council:

We have a first year program that may not be a comprehensive as it could be.
We should look at having mandatory orientation for all majors that includes orientation to the university built in.
A sub-committee will be set up to review these issues.

Specific comments on the second initiative – Availability of Upper Division Courses

Course availability is a contributing factor – in the past, we have had to send students to KSU to take certain upper division Biology courses.
Availability of upper division courses varies by department – probably have enough courses but pre-requisites may be a problem.
Dr. Szafran stated that the two-year “permanent” schedule has been distributed for review and should include day and night offerings.

Specific comments on the third initiative – Student Employment Office

This is probably more important at the graduate assistant level
not a good choice of funding – should have an office but not a priority for funding

Specific comments on the fourth initiative – Department Action Plan

Need consistent criteria, i.e. first time freshmen, transfer student, etc., and good reports available – work with Institutional Research to get the data we need.
Must be integrated with advising to identify those students not making progress
If we have data comparing department to department and data is significantly different we should know why.
Need better Banner reports and have them easier to find
Most agree progression should be at the departmental level
Low graduation rate (29%) is a big issue and affects all departments. Having departmental plans would give us something to compare with other institutions with similar programs.
Need to define what we consider successful progression.
The system will be looking more closely at these numbers and we should be prepared to explain.

A draft response will be circulated to the ALC in a few days before responding to the System. The deadline for response is October 3.

Item 4: Leadership Development

Dr. Szafran asked the Council for input about putting resources toward establishing a “culture of leadership development” to include acclimating new faculty and staff, and helping established faculty and staff with promotions, grant-writing, research, etc., and what we might do to bring this about.

Some ideas/thoughts shared were:

Be prepared to reward
Create a program similar to one used at former institution where faculty and staff are nominated by supervisor or peers to be part of a semester-long leadership program with workshops, retreat, etc. – helps boost confidence and builds community
Could be part of the Academic Support Center
Focus on problem solving
Need to know what leadership is
Need workshops for faculty and department chairs

Meeting adjourned at 4:20