Vincennes University June2012 Institutional Overview Vital Characteristics: Vincennes University is a public, not-for-profit institution located in the southwestern Indiana community of Vincennes, Indiana. One of the first two-year colleges in America, Vincennes University is also Indiana’s oldest college. In 1801, Jefferson Academy, the direct forerunner of Vincennes University, was founded at Vincennes, Indiana. The Indiana territorial legislature, at its first session in 1806, passed an act to incorporate the first university in the Indiana Territory, “to be called and known by the name and style of Vincennes University.” William Henry Harrison, first governor of the Indiana Territory, and later (1841) President of the United States, was the founder of the college and the first chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University. Vincennes University has had a distinguished history, rich with the traditions of many firsts. In the Vincennes University catalog of 1899, the statement appeared that, “Vincennes University is in fact a junior college offering the first two years of the regular college programs.” By that statement, Vincennes University claims to be one of the first colleges to develop and recognize the junior college concept in higher education. Today, the University is a model comprehensive two-year “university” offering more than 150 associate degree programs and options, and seven baccalaureate degrees in specialized areas. Vincennes University has a statewide mission and is a fully state-supported college, recognized as being unique in Indiana. In addition to the Vincennes campus, the University has a second campus at Jasper, Indiana, and major extension sites at the Indianapolis International Airport and the Indiana School for the Deaf, also in Indianapolis. Through its dual enrollment program and its unique early college program, the university assists high school students in transitioning into higher education when the student is ready. The university also serves a growing distance education population with more than 30 programs and provides higher education experiences for our military at more than 37 bases. As of the October 15, 2011, reporting date, VU had an enrollment of 6,701 full-time undergraduate students and 10,439 part-time students. The part-time students include 1,720 at military sites, 6,239 dual-credit Project EXCEL students, 112 Project Link students, and 1,287 early college enrollees. Vincennes University’s Mission is as follows: Vincennes University, Indiana’s first college, is the State’s premier transfer institution and leader in innovative career programming. The VU community ensures educational access, delivers proven associate and baccalaureate programs, and offers cultural opportunities and community services in a diverse, student-centered, collegiate environment. VU’s commitment to being a “premier learning institution” is best expressed in its values statement, the “Premier Learning Institution” document. VU’s Vision for the future is as follows: Vincennes University is a premier learning institution, widely recognized for leadership in innovation and delivery of successful educational experiences. A breadth of program offerings and a commitment to quality service ensure the University’s role as an important link in Indiana’s economic and cultural vitality. VU is a diverse community whose members all share responsibility for supporting the University mission and are respected for their contributions. Both the mission and the vision commit VU to offering quality educational experience, community service, and collaborative partnerships, which are reflected in its strategic planning and reflective of the Vincennes University motto: “Learn in Order to Serve.” The institution’s current strategic plan is heavily focused on serving students, with goals for recruitment, retention, and success. VU is also committed to using assessment for continuous quality improvement, improving services by increasing technology, and finding new markets for its service. VU’s Strategic Vision includes the following goals: Strategic Planning Goal I: Improve Through Assessment Strategic Planning Goal II: Promote Student Recruitment Strategic Planning Goal III: Retain Students Strategic Planning Goal IV: Enhance Student Success AQIP Systems Portfolio P a g e | 1 Overview Vincennes University June2012 Strategic Planning Goal V: Explore Strategic Partnerships/Additional Sites Strategic Planning Goal VI: Increase Technology VU’s action projects both derive from and determine projects in the strategic plan. Current AQIP action projects are the following: “Implementation of Assessment Plans,” “Implementing VU’s Vision of a 21st Century Education,” and “Learn in Order to Serve.” O1: Helping Students Learn Vincennes University focuses many efforts toward helping students learn. As stated in Goal 1 of the University’s Strategic Plan, “Vincennes University will develop a University-wide culture of assessment for continuous improvement. ‘University-wide’ includes all Vincennes University programs and courses.” To fulfill this plan, this past year has centered on naming an Interim Director of Institutional Effectiveness, who in turn selected faculty liaisons for each division, as well as three staff members who represent the non-instructional perspective to assist in making the transition from instructional assessment to university-wide improvements. VU’s previous assessment reports focused more on collecting data and less on delivering on improvement to assist student learning. With the help of the Interim Director of Institutional Effectiveness and the Assessment Committee, VU placed a concentrated effort on assessment intended to engage the campus in the expectation that “assessment is part of the way VU does business,” by developing a systematic and sustainable assessment process for student learning outcomes. VU is also developing a web-based reporting system that will make assessment reports available for sharing on campus and will be transparent for all stakeholders on the new Institutional Effectiveness website. Internally, VU continues to highlight Action Projects dealing with the development of liberal education outcomes for the entire curriculum. A new Action Project was added in 2011 to address the approval and implementation of these outcomes, as well as the University curriculum mapping process and the course vetting process. Externally, the state of Indiana has recently produced legislation requiring academic programs hours to be reduced: 60 hours for associate degrees and 120 for baccalaureate degrees. In addition, the state is now developing a state-wide core of 30 hours of transfer general education. These new state initiatives have caused VU to pause and reconsider its general education requirements and outcomes, as it needs both to meet state requirements and align its general education with other state institutions. The Directors of General Education and Institutional Effectiveness worked together, with the support of their respective committees, to request that general education basic skills programs assess math, composition, and speaking skills, and they worked with select programs in the distribution categories (what VU calls in its current general education scheme “Liberal Education”) to assess general education learning, using outcomes that have been proposed for the general and liberal education program. VU’s plan is to establish a system of general and liberal education assessment that will operate on a rotation basis; that is, like many other institutions, certain outcomes will be assessed each year on a schedule so that in four or five years, a full cycle of general education assessment will have been completed. VU will most likely use this rotation approach because it wants to keep a focused, annual effort on the assessment of academic programs for the reasons stated above—this is the best way to establish a culture of assessment—and because with the focus on workforce development and developing competencies that employers want, it is important that faculty continue to produce evidence of their students’ success and employability. The Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Committee was formed by VU’s President to develop and implement the University’s Strategic Plan and various action projects, as recommended by University employees in an application process. The Educational Futures Task Force, an ad hoc group formed to complete the Action Project, “Education for the 21st Century Graduate,” in an effort to explore and define integrated learning for VU students, invited Dr. Terrell Rhodes, (Vice President of Quality, Curriculum and Assessment at AAC&U and also the director of the AAC&U General Education Institute), to address the campus and various focus groups about the importance of AQIP Systems Portfolio P a g e | 2 Overview Vincennes University June2012 general and liberal education. As an open-enrollment university, Vincennes has several programs in place to address the issue of unprepared students. For example, as part of a second Action Project, “Learn in Order to Serve,” Kathleen Gabriel offered a workshop on campus, focusing on her book, Teaching Unprepared Students. Additionally, a special committee was formed this past year through the same action project to rework and refine the TAPS early warning system. This system will be intensified this next year so that faculty and advisors can reach out to struggling students much earlier to offer guidance and assistance. The University’s