Notes from the October 26, 2012 Meeting of the UW Flexible Degree
Model Faculty and Instructional Academic Staff Committee
1820 Van Hise Hall, UW-Madison
1.
Welcome and Introductions.
The meeting began with a welcome from Aaron Brower, Interim Provost at UW-Extension,
and introductions by committee members and guests.
2.
Committee Charge
UW System President Kevin Reilly provided background on how and why the Flex Degree
initiative was being developed, covering the following points:
• It is estimated that 750,000 adults in Wisconsin have some college credits, but no
degrees. Of this population, it is estimated that 60,000 of these adults would be
interested in completing their degrees.
• Currently, there are 17,000 adult non-traditional students enrolled in proprietary
colleges to finish their degrees in various delivery formats.
• Wisconsin is below the national average for individuals holding baccalaureate
degrees.
• The Flex Degree model supports the Wisconsin Idea with it proud tradition of
innovation and outreach, in which the beneficent efforts of the university are felt in
every corner of the state.
• The UW System will always have students who pursue education in traditional 4-year
or 2-year formats. There is a larger general population of adults in Wisconsin beyond
the typical student ages of 18-22 who are looking for university education. This adult
population does not have the ability to take semester-long courses in a traditional
format, and the Flex Degree seeks to serve those students.
• The Flex model will be informed by the UW System’s participation in AAC&U’s
LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) initiative.
• The monastery model of higher education is outdated. Online courses and accelerated
courses are changing how education is delivered, witness the growth of MOOCs, and
the hundreds of online courses available in the UW System.
• Higher education is in high demand worldwide.
• While the reaction to our announcement of the Flex Degree Option has been intense,
there is also excitement. The nation is watching to see how we implement our
program, the next generation paradigm for higher education.
• Intense pressure from the Regents to move this forward.
• Developing this new model is scary because we are messing with our basic business
and academic model!
• Faculty are at the heart of the endeavor: they will determine the
outcomes/competencies and the assessments that will provide the evidence of student
learning—nobody else can do this.
• Without faculty and academic staff involvement, the program will not attain the
quality we envision, programmatically or pedagogically.
• We have an obligation to reach out to adult learners who are working hard, want a
degree, and are more likely to stay here in Wisconsin, where they have jobs, homes,
and families. It is important to keep these individuals grounded here in Wisconsin.
Several people commented on the reduced state funding for public higher education, a
downward slope that began even in good economic years.
A question was asked about the timing of the Flex Degree announcement and development.
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Mark Nook, Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, cited the following
conditions for why the UW-System was looking at this now and how the timing was right:
1. Significant advances in technology and the proficiency of the citizenry in engaging with
it;
2. Big strides in Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) and in framing our educational goals in
terms of outcomes and their measurement;
3. There is a growing adult market and we are at a point where we need to respond to this
demographic shift and provide support to non-traditional students.
Comment: this endeavor involves grappling with a changed context and a rethinking of higher
education.
Ray Cross, Chancellor at UW-Extension, provided some additional background on the
development of the Flex Degree concept by UW-Extension. He shared what has been learned
traveling to Southern New Hampshire University, Western Governor’s University (WGU),
and other educational institutions offering flexible options to earning degrees through
competencies, assessments, and credit awarded for prior educational and work experience.
Chancellor Cross emphasized the support the UW System has from Governor Walker and his
understanding that new money would be necessary to get the program launched. Funds would
not be taken from the campuses to pay for it.
Chancellor Cross noted that the goal was to launch the program in the fall of 2013. The model
the System wants to emulate is not used by public universities, creating challenges in
determining curricula for the program, tuition pricing, and, finally, ensuring quality in the
delivery. Calling faculty the “guardians of quality,” he presented these questions to the group:
• Do we have the will to tackle this challenge and deliver a quality degree in a rewarding
way?
• Can we offer existing degrees in a flexible format?
• Can we design this program in such a way students can receive financial aid, essential
student services (especially advising), and not lose the quality of the student’s
educational experience?
• Can we do this in a way that does not overwhelm faculty, staff, administration, and the
other support functions in our system?
• What is the glue that holds a university education together, i.e., the mortar for the
bricks?
Comments:
• Given the “perfect storm” of the technological and demographic changes, and the
System’s historic embrace of the Wisconsin Idea, it’s meritorious that this committee
is being convened.
• Time will be needed for the people who commit to working on the Flex Degree.
Aaron Brower noted that the intense pressure to create the Flex Degree was also an
opportunity to do it really well! At the same time, he said, we need to be honest about what
the endeavor entails and the challenges involved in doing it well.
3.
UW Flex Degree Development: Progress to Date and Key Features – Aaron Brower
Aaron provided the following update:
Aaron Brower and Rebecca Karoff were visiting UW institutions by invitation, to describe the
Flex model and discuss what might be possible for those interested in working to develop
programs. No institution was required to participate; we were looking for “a coalition of the
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willing.” Every degree and certificate program offered in the flexible model would be granted
by the institution. UW-Extension would play a coordinating role (it does not—nor will it—
grant degrees). Shared governance worked differently at each UW; it would be respected as
flex programs were developed. No intention to change academic policy. The Faculty/IAS
Committee would provide oversight of, and input into, key arenas of the development process.
In response to a question, Aaron said the Flex Degree was a brand name for many products,
not a single product.
He then described some of the learning theory behind the envisioned structure of Flex Degree
programs:
1. Start with the learning outcomes and then lay out the competencies. Capturing the
right competencies (writing them well) is important.
2. Then determine the assessments that show mastery of the competencies. If a program
had 40 competencies, you would need to measure all 40 of them. Developing good
assessments is crucial (and difficult).
3. Strong mentoring and support will be needed for students throughout the program.
This will be critical, expensive, and will require both faculty and professional
advisors/coaches.
4. The flexibility comes in the activities the students can use/do to obtain and
demonstrate mastery of content as they work to complete a program, e.g., take a
MOOC, receive credit for prior learning assessment, use their work or volunteer
experience, previous courses from other colleges and universities, read a book, etc.
The key is demonstrating mastery.
5. Flexibility also comes because the program will not be semester- or term-based, with
a defined starting and stopping point. It will be self-paced and modular; students can
opt to take assessments at any point to demonstrate their learning.
Three advisory groups are working to guide the development of distinct areas:
1. Faculty and Academic Instructional Staff advisory committee (us) to work on the
academic components and faculty oversight;
2. Administrative advisory committee to work on the business model and other
operational systems; and
3. Academic and Student Support advisory committee to think through student services
in areas like financial aid, admissions, enrollment, student records, etc.
4.
Committee Discussion of Charge
Aaron reviewed the four items of the committee’s charge:
1. Come to a shared understanding of the Flex Degree's basic elements;
2. Identify the questions and issues that need to be addressed for the Flex Degree to
become a reality;
3. Develop principles we want to follow in the development and implementation of the
Flex Degree; and
4. Recommend the appropriate role for ongoing faculty/IAS oversight.
Committee members raised the following questions, concerns, and topics:
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How will student mastery be determined and what will be required: minimal
competency, equivalent to grades of D or C, for which we currently grant credit?
Higher levels of mastery, equivalent to grades of an A or B?
Will traditional-aged students be able to do the Flex model?
What kind of parameters will be set for the program, i.e., for admissions?
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How will advising work, especially given that many of the students will be ones who
had trouble “succeeding” or completing post-secondary education in the first place?
VITALLY important that we provide maximal support to ensure student success for
arguably vulnerable students (imagine the disaster if retention/grad rates are bad after
investing so much into this new model).
Example of a teacher-education licensure program at Oshkosh: it is very timeintensive to help students succeed!
Professional development will be needed to educate the educators about this program.
Need to emphasize that faculty are in charge of the model and the development
process.
We’re talking about existing degree programs at UW institutions and we need to
change how we refer to the UW Flex Degree, which sounds like any and every degree
could/will be flexible!
Will we have to outsource teaching in developing these new modes of delivery, given
existing faculty workload issues?
Will faculty attend to the potential revenue of this model, and not attend appropriately
to quality?
We should talk about what we won’t be doing, i.e., how the UW model will be
different from WGU. Would like to gain an understanding of the strengths and
weaknesses of the other models out there, so we know what to emulate and what to
avoid.
In the long run, will this competency-based delivery model be the UW System’s
preferred, default mode, instead of seat time? The whole initiative has been entirely
top-down thus far.
How do we account for the relational quality between/among the courses that make up
our majors and degree programs? What about HIPs and other practices that contribute
so greatly to quality and student success? Would hate to see all that undermined by
the Flex model.
Could this new model provide another way of defining quality?
Will we use/need rubrics to establish a continuum of competency?
If degree-completion is the driver for all of this, then this is the moment to advocate,
too, for our traditional populations and what they need to complete quality degrees!
Can we avoid “shadow grading,” i.e., the outsourcing of grading? Cf. WIDs.
Mary Reines, executive assistant to Aaron, shared her experience in completing an M.B.A.
from Capella University. She emphasized the program’s transparency in bringing students
into the assessment process; support was provided to all students to ensure that they
understood the required competencies and the rubrics used to assess them.
Aaron provided some initial responses and a summary of those topics that the committee
would need to address in its remaining meetings. For some of these topics, this group should
establish principles or guidelines; for others, the two other advisory groups will need to
address in terms of process and operations.
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Timeline of the start of the Flex Degree Option:
o Once developed by faculty, institutional academic program approval timelines
will determine when flex options are ready to be offered (not political
considerations).
o Several non-credit-bearing Continuing Education courses offered out of UWExtension will be converted very soon to pilot the model and, in particular,
help raise some of the major academic and student support questions that will
need to be addressed.
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Marketing and Communication:
o This group can help determine the key features of the program that need to be
consistently communicated, in particular internally within our institutions, but
also externally.
o Others will worry about market analysis, public relations, and marketing to
students.
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Mastery of Competencies
o Principles for what we mean by competencies and how they would translate
to credits, given our current credit-based model.
o Guidelines needed for appropriate levels of competency and mastery to ensure
student success and quality.
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Assessment:
o Principles for what we mean by assessment and identification of a range of
assessments that would be possible/appropriate for the program.
o Assessment of student learning and of flex programs.
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Professional development:
o Principles for faculty and staff developing programs and teaching in the
model.
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Quality Assurance:
o Principles for what we mean by quality, especially in terms of the “inbetween,” mortar-like experiences (i.e., HIPs, WIDs).
o Guidance on program review and accreditation issues.
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Admissions:
o How admissions will work? Will anyone be admitted who's interested, or will
there be minimal standards based on what it takes to succeed in a flex
program?
o Parameters needed around non-traditional adults?
o Advising at the point of admissions will be needed to ascertain goals of
students and the conditions in place for students to succeed (e.g., time to
commit, finances, and competencies/ portfolio coming into the program).
o Consider something similar to WGU's admissions counseling interviews.
o This group should develop general principles/recommendations but academic
and student support group will address process.
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Advising:
o Labor-intensive and expensive throughout program to help students succeed,
especially front-end.
o Students in this program will need to know how to get to the end point
(degree completion) and how to get out of the program if their situation
changes.
o Principles for how the advising/mentoring model will work best within the
UW system.
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Transfer (in and out):
o How will it work, for registrars, advisers, and other support staff working with
students?
o For students?
o Translation of competencies to credits?
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This group could develop general principles/recommendations but academic
and student support group will address process.
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Business Model:
o Administrative group will take up the business model, including tuitionpricing and revenue-sharing (over time, assuming enrollment projections are
fulfilled).
o Two drivers for how to price this: market for comparable programs and the
need to price the program so we don’t undercut our traditional programs.
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Resources:
o $12 million needed over the biennium to get initial Flex Degree options up
and running.
o This is up-front, one-time investment needed, not continuing cost.
Future Meetings and Next Steps – Aaron Brower
Committee members will receive notes and future meeting dates soon. We’ll create some kind
of share-point site or Wiki in order to make materials more easily available to members.
Rev. 11/09/12