Meeting on State Board Initiatives at Southern Oregon University

Friday Oct. 23, 2004.

Peter Gilkey (IFS President) Facilitator

Introductory remarks by P. Gilkey:

• Students now pay $2 for every $1 the state commits.
• State makes no profit until student actually earns his Bachelors.  This is (only) part of the concern for the relatively high dropout rate of undergraduate students in Oregon.
• State is interested in creating a seamless way for students to transfer between institutions, to facilitate their timely matriculation and promote retention.
• Oregon is going into the coming legislative lesion with a huge deficit; will be asking all state agencies for a 10% cut.
• OUS is asking for funds to promote retention, ease of transfer.
• The results of the faculty driven processes will be reported to the state board, to the MBF working group, and to JBAC
• On November 19, there will be a Summit meeting with all concerned. If closure can be reached, we will then take proposal to Board, Provosts’ Council, IFS, back to OUS campuses for ratification. IFS is involved to ensure that faculty are involved and not accidentally passed over by the State board.
• Oregon really lets down our minority students and first generation college students.  OUS gets an F in affordability.
• JBAC has determined that Ohio and Colorado are national leaders in creating a system that is tops in affordability and retention.
• GETM can be completed in one academic year, 45 credits.  AAOT takes two years. AAOT has electives; GETM doesn't. AAOT carved 5 credits from SS and Science / Math / CS.  In reality, this will be 9-12 credits. Advising is an absolutely crucial tool for GETM to work.  Attendees are urged to read the handout on advising and give feedback to Peter.
• How does GETM fit  for OIT - there are additional courses in writing, oral communication, ss, sci / math / CS.
• OSU additional courses, writing, difference, Power, and discrimination, contemporary global issues, science, tech, society. UO - arts and letters, ss, sci/math/cs, foreign language, multicultural. Each institution will be allowed to top off the required with other courses. WOU — arts and lets, ss, sci/math/cs, Health and Physical Education, for lang, diversity PSU — interdisciplinary, upper division, capstone. SOU - oral communication, DU synthesis. UO has 1200 transfer students per  year, 200 from OUS, rest from Community Colleges.  Some come with AAOT.. GETM would be good for CC to CC and OUS to OUS institution.
• Articulation: GETM is to be accepted as a bundle, just as is AAOT. GETM would help to focus students’ attention.  ADVISING. There are legislators who would like to legislate a common core that is to be used at all schools and on which the majors are built.

Participant Comments:

• GETM is a compromise.  It will not fly with the legislature because it is still more complicated than they would like.  Legislature would like a “ticket” that will enable students to complete it and be done with GE.  It is reasonable that majors require different courses, and that BA requires different courses than BS.  Leg will think:  AAOT IS that ticket; GETM will require still more courses in order to complete LD work.
• What really matters in college, regardless of college?  How can we shape outcomes measures to assess this?
• Most faculty think their major is more important than the General Education requirements.
• GETM requires more credits than SOU does in at least one area.
• We must count credits, rather than courses.
• Students will care much less than legislature about whether we get a “package” of RQ credits.  Why buy into a package that will promote students leaving CC earlier? What is best for student?  How do we increase guarantee that transfer students are guaranteed junior status upon entry into another institution?  In the program, too - not just the institution.  We are solving a political, not a transfer, problem.

Peter Gilkey: Chancellor George Pernsteiner said yesterday that, in Portland area, there is “swirling”, where students take courses at many Portland universities, and they all transfer.  thus, articulation agreements between OUS schools ware essential. We can't have all possible articulations between all possible institutions.

Participant Comments:

• There is also swirling at SOU
• AAOT works for those who are focused on a 4 year institution and a major.
• Solution will be in development of articulations.
• We do have swirling, between Medford campus and SOU campus and Rogue Community COllege.
• There are not just the 17 Oregon Community Colleges. SOU also interacts with some California Community Colleges.
• SOU is renovating GE anyway; hard to say how the product will fit with GETM

Peter Gilkey: What about the impact of GETM on school diversity / mission / id?  What about the right of faculty to control our own curriculum?

Participant Comments:
 

• From student's view — what works best?  It's the major that really impacts the student — the General Education courses/requirements should be relatively transferable.
• Intros to disciplines at SOU are in sequence.  Transfer students who don't know that might not take the right courses for their LD work.  45 credits is only _ of credits needed.  As long as cap remains at 45, there's plenty of room for students to add what they want / need.
• preserving institutional uniqueness.  For SOU, its smaller, lib arts, unique art / theater programs, faculty - student interaction.  It's not the core courses that are the institutional uniqueness.
• We really need to preserve the integrity of lib arts, which is about the entire collegiate experience.  GETM might be irrelevant to this (my words).
• Students will go wherever they can in and out aSAP.  We need to facilitate their transfer.  Private colleges, which now have 4% of college students.  This is doubling yearly,.
• Rename GE as “foundational education”.
• OUS and Community Colleges must be well connected in this endeavor.  Rename GE as something that reflects their relevance to surviving in HE.
• re: writing component: will it be standardized?  It will be whatever is working for AAOT.

Peter Gilkey: Each OUS campus will need to decide what a GETM is on each 4 year campus, since they don't have AAOT.

Participant comments:

• we need to recruit and retain, but w/o sacrificing quality.  Wa are making sacrifices to GE, which used to be broad.
• there are few job entry programs at Community Colleges now; most career tracks require more than AA degree.  We need to find a way for transfer students who have been on a technical track to get their Bachelor w/o losing their vocational hours.  (articulation)
• We have many different sets of students who come out of Rogue Community College.  Some know they want a Bachelor's degree, some want a technical career.  Students are transient geographically, and / or have come back to school from years of work — many different kinds of students.  We need good articulation agreements.  ADVISING, and having a clear path through the programs, goes to the heart of the module.
• Re: articulation: we need also to facilitate faculty to faculty connections.  GE IS as important as the major.  that is where they get the survival skills to move in the world, not just their major.  don't lose quality there.  The need for GETM is not just a market phenomenon; its a matter of what public expects from a public education.  We need to educate public about what matters in college: 5 basic things:  writing, speaking. We CAN measure these.  We need to accept the challenge of doing this rather than letting our legislators do it.
• Faculty / faculty contact are where these difficulties get solved.  (4-year college and community college).

Peter Gilkey: When state does not invest in Higher Education, we are throwing away our most precious resource.  The governor understands this, as does the Board.