RPC Meeting Minutes
Fall 2013 at Olympic College
Wed. Oct. 16 – Fri. Oct. 18, 2013
Number of meeting attendees: 48
Number of colleges represented: 24 (plus SBCTC representatives)
Day 1 – Wed. Oct. 16, 2013
1:30 – 2:45 pm – Assessment – HSS 225
Summer Kenesson (Bates TC) – Transferable skills (implementation and assessment):
Summer presented learning from her participation in a 2006 project in Scotland; she presented
the context for this work, transferable skills defined, levels of assessment, defining points of
distance traveled, stages and types of transferable skills assessments (such as positive activity,
engagement, directed action, and self-direction) and best practices guidelines. See the attached
PowerPoint presentation, hand-out, and Baseline study of employability-related activities in
Scotland’s colleges (final report).
RPC SK
Presentation.pptx
RPC handouts.pdf
Employability_Final_
Report.pdf
Wendy Hall (Lower Columbia College) – Assessment of general education outcomes – A
summer institute model: Assessment of general education relates to accreditation standards 2.C.
9, 2.C.10, and 2.C.11. Wendy reviewed critical steps, lessons learned, LCC’s outcomes (global
skills), instructional assessment timeline at LCC, the plan, the preparation, the institute (faculty
apply; select 9 readers – represent all faculty for one week; assess one outcome per year, ask for
a representative sample of artifacts from every faculty member on campus, remove student
names from artifacts), closing the loop (designated assessment day each quarter during
opening/zero week), and maintaining momentum. LCC’s rubrics are all posted on
http://services.lowercolumbia.edu/internal/faculty-resources/assessment/global-skillsassessment/. Under the new standards (2.C.9) there is still a reference to communication,
computation, and human relations general education outcomes. See the attached PowerPoint.
Global Skills
Assessment October 2013.pptx
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Tableau – Victoria Ichungwa (TCC) – HSS 111
Victoria showed headcount, program review, and learning resources dashboards. She reviewed
Tableau extract, best practices for dashboards, and offered the go to resources and references that
she considers helpful in learning tableau. Also, participants played with data from an example
spreadsheet and built a sample dashboard together. Participants were also informed on the
updating process (and the advantages of having server versus the desktop version). Victoria also
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covered the various methods of sharing the dashboards. At TCC, employees can access
dashboards on internal portals. See the attached PowerPoint presentation.
RPC
Presentation_Tableau.pptx
SQL server – Sheila Delquadri (Yakima Valley Community College) – HSS 111
Sheila demonstrated in SQL Report Builder 3.0 how to create an Annual Headcount report with
parameters using data warehouse data. This process entailed creating a query and adding filters
and parameters to that query. She also added a graph the report showing trend data. Also, Sheila
presented some of YVCC’s canned reports (i.e., course pass rates, etc.) that are available to
faculty and staff in the OIE portal. She offered to share code with anyone interested in
replicating the reports her office has already created. See this link to screen captures.
New member orientation – Maureen Pettitt – HSS 111
Maureen reviewed the revised New Member Resource document (v 1.3). Discussion and
questions followed the presentation. The document can be downloaded from the State Board
RPC website under minutes. Also, the most recent version of the New Member Resource
document is attached here.
RPC_MemberResour
ces_V 1.4 Oct2013.doc
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Day 2 – Thurs. Oct. 17, 2013
8:00 – 9:00 am (ENG 117)
Kudos to presenters yesterday… Victoria, Summer, Wendy, Sheila, Maureen, and Michelle (for
hosting us)
Greeting from Olympic President Dr. David Mitchell: highlighted Olympic College’s 2 major
data foci on assessing (1) student learning outcomes and (2) student progression and completion
Introductions
9:00 – 10:00 am – Trustees’ Workshop Debriefing Panel – Summer Kenesson (Bates
Technical), Susan Murray (Wenatchee Valley), Sheila Delquadri (Yakima Valley), Valerie
Kirkwood (Big Bend), Patty James (Bellevue), David Prince (State Board), Darby Kaikkonen
(State Board), Chris Johnson (Green River) – ENG 117
David Prince (State Board) – Overview of meeting: National conference was held in Seattle on
Oct. 2. 150 people attended. Almost every college had representatives at the meeting. An
overview of the data was presented and then 3 college institutional researchers presented
information they track at their colleges. Overall responses have been positive. Panels were very
much valued. David heard workshop comments on both sides of the issue of comparing colleges.
Other data point that generated discussion with him was ESL transition.
Summer Kenesson (Bates Technical): 3 trustees attended and asked a lot of questions and then
they honed in on ESL transition and math performance; the trustees were thinking about their
community connections that could contribute to increasing student success (even advocating
state-or nation-wide to improve completion rates)
Susan Murray (Wenatchee Valley): president and 2 trustees attended the workshop; trustees
wanted to return from the workshop with clear messages; time well-spent
Sheila Delquadri (Yakima Valley): Her president, Wilma, and one trustee participated in the
panel. Another two trustees were in attendance for a total of three trustees looking and discussing
the data. They had already discussed the data before the workshop; identified things they are
doing on campus that are improving student success, regardless of which indicators you use to
measure it. The best part of being on the panel was that it provided the opportunity to have indepth conversations about how to keep the momentum going and to take strategies to scale at
YVCC.
Valerie Kirkwood (Big Bend): Big Bend used Carver’s model; trustees are used to seeing data;
Board is quite involved at looking at data and asking questions; obtained 3 Hispanic-serving
grants; increased fall-spring retention rates by 13%; developmental math success rates increased
by using Emporium model; trying to improve advising and closing the completion gap for Latino
students; trustees involved every step of the way
Patty James (Bellevue): Patty and 2 trustees attended the workshop. The BC president has had
the cabinet (his direct reports) reading “Start with “Why”?”; the college had no goals, now they
have goals, one of which is closing the gap; they are in the process of developing a new strategic
plan, a student services plan and an academic master plan by June 2014.
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Darby Kaikkonen (State Board): Process-wise – quick process, and RPC was an incredible
responsive group in helping out. Darby ran data and created pivot tables, IR folks trouble-shot
data; Carmen initially got it off the ground; Joe helped with programming errors; Anne Marie
created visual template; panels helped tremendously to show how data can be applied; in future,
trustees might want to have presentations from high performing colleges
Chris Johnson (Green River): What makes a promising practice? recruited for panels; has new
strategic plan; new ATD college; board is interested in how they are going to move the needle;
looking at a college outcomes policy; cross-sectional versus longitudinal analyses is confusing to
trustees, we need both; our job is to keep the trustees out of the weeds and train them in
longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses (and to use both methods); their college signed up with
Voluntary Framework for Accountability
10:00 – 10:15 – Break
10:15 – 11:15 – Padilla’s approach to researching student success (Dr. Derek Brandes, VPI,
Green River) : Dr. Brandes’ dissertation was about Hispanic students in emerging Hispanicserving institutions. He is an expert in the Padilla method in focus groups and has an interest in
recovery and resiliency planning. He conducted an activity with a scratch piece of paper where
he had participants identify barriers to success (e.g., time away from family, finances, study
skills, childcare, work, etc.), knowledge needed to overcome the barrier (e.g., how to complete a
FAFSA), and actions or behaviors we need to overcome the barriers (e.g., get help to complete a
FAFSA). About 30 years ago, Padilla looked at criticisms of Tinto’s model of student departure
(as it was done at residential campuses with 4-year students most of whom were Caucasian
students). Instead Padilla looked at what successful students did to be successful. He looked at
heuristic knowledge (rules of thumb) and formal knowledge (from the classroom) and the
behaviors. Padilla developed a framework with 4 assumptions; this framework is an expertise
model of student success. Dr. Brandes presented Padilla’s research methodology (i.e., cascading
focus groups that build on preceding focus groups), recommendations for conducting focus
groups, and resources and responded to questions. See the attached hand-out.
Dr Brandes - Padilla
Focus Groups.pdf
11:15 – 12:00 – ctcLink Presentation (Tonya Benton) – ENG 117: Tonya provided her quarterly
overview of the status of ctcLink. She reviewed the ctcLink implementation schedule (Wave 1
starts August 2014; Wave 2 starts May 2015; Wave 3 starts May 2016); office of change
management corner – June survey results revealed four prominent themes for current concerns:
(1) data mapping from legacy to PeopleSoft; (2) training timeline and approaches; (3) reporting
functionality; and (4) change uncertainty. She presented details about the tools and process of
preparing the data for reporting: conversion, crosswalks, configuration and cleanup. A
configuration guide example was demonstrated and it was announced that all the configuration
guides would be published on the ctcLink college resources website once complete. Additional
concerns about access and format of PS data available to be warehoused on college campuses
was noted for future presentations and discussions. See the attached PowerPoint presentation.
RPC_ctcLink_-Oct-17
-2013.ppt
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12:00-1:00 – Lunch
1:00-2:15 – Committee Meetings
Accreditation – HSS 209 – Susan Murray (Jim Mulik – chair – was absent) – See the attached
committee meeting minutes.
Minutes-Accreditatio
nCommittee-Darby.doc
Data Governance – Susan Maxwell and Carmen McKenzie – did not meet (attached are
minutes from their 10-03-2013 phone meeting)
DGC Phone
10_03_2013.docx
Data Mart – HSS 211 – Mark Macias – See the attached committee meeting minutes.
Minutes-DataMart-M
ark.doc
Data Stewards – HSS 214 – Cynthia Requa – See the attached committee meeting minutes.
Minutes-DataStewar
ds-Hal.doc
Communication – HSS 218 – Evan Picton – See the attached committee meeting minutes.
Minutes-Communicati
onCommittee-Evan.doc
Performance and Outcomes (Accountability) – HSS 202 – Maureen Pettitt (chair) – See the
attached committee meeting minutes.
Minutes-Accountabilit
yCommittee-Maureen.doc
2:30 – 4:00 – Panel Presentation: Connecting data to strategies on campuses – HS 129
Darby Kaikkonen (State Board): Darby spoke about the Best Practices Exchange and how best
practices need to provide data-based evidence. Presenters this year will focus on movement to
and through SAI points. How do you connect strategies on campus to the data (SAI data)? We
broke into small groups and discussed these questions: (1) How can you connect strategies to
measurable institutional impacts (moving the needle)? (2) Where have you done this? How do
you plan to do this? What barriers are there in doing this?
Group ideas…
- New advising and developmental education math; centers (high percent participate); resulted
in scapital improvements
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-
Orientation increased retention
Academic early warning
Connected to SAI (revised)
Simplifying pathways
Set up a supplemental instruction for developmental education
Motivation
Optional versus required
Planning (year)
Created a position in advising called “completion coaches” (provided with list of students
who are within a certain distance of completion) who follow-up with students; used money
from Aspen to assist students to complete
Requirement for a human development / student success course (for certain students)
Linked college success skills in learning communities
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Day 3 – Fri. Oct. 18, 2013
THR 0100
8:00 – 9:00 am – State Board updates
David Prince
1. Results Washington: for postsecondary, access indicators (i.e., increase STEM/High Demand
and STEM enrollments/completions); eLearning increase hybrid/online enrollments, basic
skills- increase transitions. One challenge is determining who are STEM students (i.e., precalculus – calculus sequence, 55 science credits, etc.)
2. Dashboard: State Board, at their fall retreat, identified metrics it wants tracked on a
dashboard. Includes total achievement points, points/student, workforce awards, short
certificates, transfer awards and degrees, worker retraining, veterans, basic skills, student aid,
applied bachelor degrees as areas.
3. Allocation task group: includes mainly college presidents, looked at state demographics,
1990-2010, looking at allocation formula for the next 20 years, the state won’t be growing in
next 20 years, but demands for attainment will continue. See the attached PowerPoint that
was shared with the System Allocation task force to provide a high level look at demographic
and employment demands facing the system through 2030.
demographics
employment projections 2030 Oct13_updated.pptx
4. SAI: This Thursday awards will be given; 2013 total award pool is $5.25 million. New
metrics will start this year because there was extra money to be given out. First will go to the
old method. See the attached document for details on how awards will be made this year.
Details of how SAI
awards will be made in 2013.doc
Tina Bloomer
Legislative update: A Skilled and Educated Workforce: every 2 years report to legislature due
this year (joint report or supply-demand report); credential level; mid-level we will be
oversupplying at the entry education level (BLS) but undersupplying at the competitive level
(ACS); demand is in the same areas as previous report except in health care (nursing isn’t on the
list for the first time, EMT shows greatest demand gap); baccalaureate level (computer science,
engineering, etc.); the supplemental budget request will include SAI money; STEM (500 FTES)
and aerospace (500 FTES) funded at $10,000 each, and faculty increments among other things.
9:00 – 11:30 am – Business meeting
Anne Marie Karlberg (secretary’s report): did the roll call; approved the spring minutes; ensured
everyone updated the contact list; mentioned she will email the link to the strategic planning /
accreditation website for updates/reviews; requested committee chairs, email her their minutes
and relevant documents; requested presenters over the last 3 days to email her their presentation
or hand-outs; leave name tags at door
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Anne Marie Karlberg (treasurer’s report – in Starr Bernhardt’s absence): Reviewed the
expenses and revenues for the spring 2013 meeting and tentative expenses and revenues for the
fall 2013 meeting. See the draft attached budget. Final budget (12-5-2013): Revenue for the fall
2013 RPC conference was $3,600 with 48 people registered. The cost of food services for the
winter meeting was $1,983. One travel grant of $200 was awarded for the fall meeting and an
additional $47 in supply expenses was incurred. Total net change was (positive) $1,370 at the
conclusion of the fall meeting, with an ending balance of $12,061 dollars in the RPC budget.
RPC Fall 2013
Treasurer's Report table.pdf
Chris Johnson: Best practices – operational definitions of practices (emerging, promising, best)
and processes (per Davis Jenkins’ work – best processes as opposed to best practices).
Other areas are competency based learning and impact (moving the dial) at a strategic level.
Impact is a function of scalability to the institution level, resources, costs, and effectiveness.
The trustees at our colleges are interested in the above areas. These are the areas that were
discussed at both the ACCT Conference in Seattle, as well as TACTC. The yearly TACTC
Conference is coming up in February 2014.
Teresa Green – Information Technology committee report – data link; completed the legacy
ODS (Teresa will email us slides about how to access it); have yet to start on the future ODS;
Russ is working on a replacement for the Team Foundation server. We have the Tableau server;
each college should be able to access their space on the server sometime around Jan. 1 2104; we
can get the desktop professional version that is needed only for the people creating the
dashboards for $1,200 (educational pricing) plus a $300 user’s fee (per desktop); it’s all webbased multi-platform access; don’t need to have a reader to access the dashboards; Tableau has
online trainings, the state will not be providing training on how to use the software. The
information technology commission would like to know what technology-related training would
we like at a higher education technology conference planned for next April?
Commission representative updates
Association (Cynthia Requa): The Association is the organization that addresses professional
development for exempt staff through conferences and Leading From the Middle (LFM)
modules; upcoming conference date Nov 22 at Lake Washington, conference will be on
Pathways to STEM; LFM workshops will be offered in three formats: 3-day retreats, preconference events, and special requests; the fall conference at Lake Washington on Nov 22 will
be preceded by a pre-conference workshop on HR ($90) on Nov. 21 also at Lake Washington;
the winter conference will be on March 7, with a focus on technology change
Allocation and Accountability Taskforce (Patty James): The composition is largely presidents
with two representatives from the Instruction Commission, Research and Planning Commission,
and Business Affairs Commission, and Student Services Commission. The Taskforce is
scheduled to meet before every WAC meeting through June 2014. The goal is to have report
recommendations to WAC before their July 2014 retreat. During the initial meeting, the group
spent time developing guiding principles. Patty raised the question of an established cost of
instruction—does Washington have a methodology that it uses for this? There are concerns about
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baccalaureate degrees (i.e., there is only state funding for a limited number of baccalaureate
degrees, baccalaureate degrees weren’t being projected far enough into the future for
sustainability). The next meeting is in November. Patty will provide information to RPC
regarding these deliberations. She invites RPC members to forward their ideas or concerns to her
to take to the meetings.
Committee Reports
Accountability (Maureen Pettitt): As background, the Accountability Committee was originally
called the Student Achievement Committee. Given its evolving objectives, the Committee
believes Performance and Outcomes Committee is a more accurate title.
During their meeting, the Committee members reviewed the 2013-14 work plan and noted that
the Accreditation Committee and Accountability Committee are cross-referenced on several
items in the work plan. The Committee requests that the two committees have a joint meeting at
the beginning of the normal committee meeting time at the Winter RPC meeting in Green River
so that we can clarify the goals and tasks of each committee.
Committee members reported on the status of tasks related to the continuing work on providing
“overview” documents that summarize accountability and quality frameworks/systems. These
are currently posted on the Skagit Valley College website. The committee would hope that RPC
soon has a dedicated site where these could be posted.
The best practices/processes draft case study document was shared. Since Tacoma CC has
consistently increased student achievement points, Maureen Pettitt has used TCC as the first case
study, looking at culture, practices and processes and collected both quantitative and qualitative
data with the support of TCC’s IR staff.
David Prince added best practices and processes to the work plan in response to the Presidents’
desire to know about best practices, cultural change and moving the needle, and that definitions
for best practices/processes be established in the near future.
RPC 2013-14 Work
Plan_7-22-13.docx
Accreditation (Susan Murray): 14 people attended the meeting; members shared where their
college is in the accreditation process; reviewed activities the committee has been involved in
(session on bench marking, panel on mission fulfillment, Whatcom’s accreditation/strategic
planning website); interest in activities for this year – MRTE for transfer outcomes versus
National Student Clearinghouse data, employment security SKIES database (1 state) versus
DLOA (3 states), software/tools/shadow systems colleges are using
Communication (Evan Picton): As outlined in the 2013-14 work plan (see attached document),
the Communication Subcommittee will provide a new orientation/handbook, provide
training/workshops (e.g., assessment session on Wed.), will conduct a knowledge-skills-abilities
survey, will create a central website to post resources, and will explore online group spaces; the
committee needs new members.
RPC 2013-14 Work
Plan_7-22-13.docx
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Data Governance (Susan Maxwell and Carmen McKenzie): Continued to have monthly
meetings, finalized their charter, have a workbook; slower on some projects than anticipated
because of ctcLink implementation and uncertainty of data in ctcLink. Currently working on a
proposal to modify the definition of coding for short certificates, exit code 4 (to be 44-20 credits)
and 9 (to be 19-1 credits) and exit code Z for non-credit bearing certificates; possible
implementation beginning in 2014-15. No back coding would be done.
Data Mart (Mark Macias): The committee has changed its name to Technology and
Collaboration (TaC). They will be doing a focus group approach to get feedback from colleges
about common measures/reports and, hopefully, will be able to share them with all colleges. We
will be getting a new toolset with the implementation of ctcLink; still need to look at our toolset
versus what the profession is using (look at AIR); gaps we know about include GIS (we are
hardly doing any GIS work).
Data Stewards (Cynthia Requa): Focus on making IPEDS cohort being more representative of
the populations colleges were serving. Cynthia reported the history of this project. Cohort is now
more representative, fees did not increase, and the denominator did not increase significantly. A
new element [award_seek] has been added to the data warehouse. Now with ctcLink, new factors
will be included so that PeopleSoft may implement some of the IPEDs reporting. These
discussions are at the beginning stages. The data stewards team will keep RPC in the loop
regarding decisions as they come forward. A new team will do case studies with some colleges.
Old Business – Chris Johnson
Approval of 2013-14 work plan: Do we have to approve the work plan (Maureen)? No. So
committees will forward suggestions to the executive committee. The work plan, which consists
of objectives, strategies, and expected outcomes, was submitted to WACTC Ed Services in July.
The objectives, strategies, and expected outcomes were submitted to Ed Services. Chris
recommended that operational definitions for emerging practices, promising practices, and best
practices – as well as an exploration of Davis Jenkins’s “best processes” be explored. The
Accountability Committee agreed to work on this area. Another area for study is competency
based learning, which is another area of high interest for the presidents. This area has not been
discussed or assigned. Per Maureen’s suggestion, the committee assignment of these tasks is
more fluid and can be adjusted during the year because RPC is in a learning stage – in addition to
the internal to RPC orientation of the committees. There will be some adjustment of tasks
throughout this year because certain tasks are more suitable to other RPC committees than the
ones to which they were originally designed. The general nature of the objectives, strategies, and
expected outcomes permits this flexibility.
RPC 2013-14 Work
Plan_7-22-13.docx
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New Business – Chris Johnson
The winter RPC conference will be held March 19-21, 2014, at Green River Community
College.
An IPEDS data center training suggestion was passed on to the Communication Committee
(Chris Johnson).
There was a suggestion to have an RPC representative on PNAIRP (Tonya Benton). RPC
members will be approached for this role.
There is an SPSS special of 70% off for this month only (Teresa Green).
Kristy Anderson (Gray’s Harbor) / Jack Bautsch (North Seattle): Is anyone interested in a
CCSSE consortium? No more mini-consortiums are allowed for CCSSE. Please let Christy or
Jack know if you are interested.
Free statistical software (Hal Royaltey and Maria Ashraf): KNIME (open source statistical
package for data mining, especially if you’re interested in text mining, has decision trees,
http://www.knime.org/, etc.), WEKA (for data mining, it is an open source so you can download
it on your machine; http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/), Rapid miner, widggio.com (Jessica
from Green River, for unofficial communications to organize hyperlinks, etc.).
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