Since Fall 2008, Cameron faculty, staff and students have been gathering information about the institution for presentation in the 2010 self-study. From the beginning, the goals of the self-study process have been four-fold:
2
• To complete an honest and thorough evaluation of the state of Cameron
University as it strives to meet its mission, purposes and strategic plan for the
State of Oklahoma by celebrating and communicating institutional strengths and identifying challenges and areas for institutional improvement, developing appropriate and timely plans and strategies, and allocating the resources necessary to achieve them
• To establish that Cameron University meets the North Central Association
- Higher Learning Commission accrediting criteria for an outstanding institution of higher education
• To demonstrate that Cameron University has addressed the findings from prior NCA-HLC visits
• To include all Cameron University stakeholders during the self-study process and to inform them honestly and openly of all self-study findings
In its final form, the self-study presents findings that assess Cameron’s responses to the recommendations from its 2001 accreditation visit, document the institutional changes that have occurred over the last ten years, and analyze the university’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges relevant to each of the Higher Learning
Commission’s five criteria for accreditation. Those findings are summarized as follows:
The 2001 NCA visiting team identified four specific institutional challenges for
Cameron University: Strategic Planning; Faculty Evaluation; Assessment of Student
Academic Achievement; and Affirmative Action Planning.
•
- The 2001 visiting team noted that “although short-term planning is in place, planning is not carried out within a context of established priorities with input from all constituencies.” Cameron University has addressed this concern with two internal and external stakeholder developed and implemented strategic plans with annual progress updates.
• Plan 2008: Preparing for Cameron University’s Second Century
• Plan 2013: Choices for the Second Century
•
– The 2001 visiting team observed “a lack of consistency and clarity of expectations and standards for faculty evaluation, promotion and tenure.” Cameron University has addressed this concern with a major revision of the Faculty Handbook with faculty leadership and subsequent approval at each level of the governance process. Two significant additions were made in the areas of Annual Evaluation and Post-Tenure Review.
•
– In 2001, the visiting team noted that Cameron’s “assessment of student academic achievement
[was] uneven across programs,” and, indeed, at that point, fewer than 50% of
Cameron’s degree programs were functioning at the then NCA-HLC-standard
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

level three, leading to a request for a monitoring report filed with the
Commission in July 2004. Cameron University has responded with a rigorous and continually improving process of annual program assessment and evaluation leading to full program evaluation on a five-year cycle.
•
- The 2001 visiting team report also noted that the university “lacks a plan to recruit, hire, support and retain faculty, staff and administrators who are reflective of the diversity of the student body.”
With the adoption of Plan 2008: Preparing for Cameron University’s Second
Century, diversity of both students and employees became a university core value, and in AY 2004-2005, the university published its first Affirmative
Action Plan. The plan is updated annually to reflect changes in employment legislation and university recruitment strategies.
•
: The 2001 team suggested that “a review and updating of contractual agreements for educational programs, particularly the mechanisms for resolving problems, would be wise.” Since 2001, many of the university’s collaborative agreements have been renewed and/or updated.
In addition, the university has begun routinely writing into its collaborative agreements mechanisms for the dissolution of the agreement should either party wish to terminate the agreement. Specifics vary from agreement to agreement.
•
: The 2001 team noted that “as the university faces the loss of institutional memory with the retirement of many senior faculty as well as some administrators, it would be prudent to develop more written policies and procedures and assure that these are widely accessible.” Since 2001, the university has undertaken a comprehensive policy audit and worked to formalize many campus policies. Cameron has updated its Faculty Handbook, created a Staff Handbook and made most policies and procedures available on the university website. With the implementation of
Banner in Spring 2010, the university has also begun to create desk manuals for individual positions, which should be of particular help in areas where the university has only one individual trained in a particular position, leaving it vulnerable in case of retirement or resignation.
•
: The 2001 team noted that “The anticipated retirements of a number of faculty in the near future presents an opportunity for the institution to move in new directions. Cameron might examine its current practice of filling vacant positions and consider adopting a more centralized review of vacancies in light of some established institutional priorities.” Over the last several years, the university has developed a centralized process for filling vacant faculty positions. Each summer, department chairs identify anticipated hiring needs for the upcoming year and file reports on anticipated vacancies through the appropriate deans. These reports are reviewed by the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Vice President for Business and Finance, and the President. Decisions regarding which positions to fill are made on the basis of university mission and strategic planning goals, credit hour production, and available budget. This process allows for the effective reallocation of faculty resources as necessary to meet constituent needs.
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Self-Study Executive Summary
4
•
: The 2001 team observed that
“although Cameron gathers much data as it compiles various reports for the
OSRHE, there is little evidence to indicate that the university uses these data in the decision making process. In fact, there were times that the team had conflicting data because the data were generated by different offices and were compiled using varying dates and other criteria...Hence, the team recommends that Cameron consider a policy whereby a single office compiles all data, and that those data have a more consistent basis of generation and for reporting.
Having data presented in a more consistent and standardized manner would enhance the expectations that they would be used in a decision-making process.”
Various sections of this self-study provide information regarding the steps that the university has taken in this direction. Although the university still faces some vestigial legacy system point-of entry issues, the implementation of the
Banner software now allows for single point-of-entry, and all data for reporting are compiled through the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.
In addition, the university has created a Data Standards Committee, which has developed a data standards manual, and a Reporting Committee, both of which help to ensure the reliability and consistency of decision-making data.
The university has also purchased Cognos, an information retrieval system that when implemented will allow administrators to more efficiently create customized reports for decision-making purposes than is possible with the university’s current system.
•
: The 2001 team noted that “adjunct faculty play an important role in Cameron’s instructional delivery. However, the information adjunct faculty receive related to academic policies and procedures, matters such as textbook selection and course development, and their orientation to the university, is uneven...A separate faculty handbook designed just for adjunct faculty would be helpful, and a more regularized orientation and communication system, perhaps by an online newsletter, might be vehicles for incorporating all adjuncts into the Cameron community.” Since 2001, the university has created an adjunct faculty guide, and it has instituted an annual adjunct orientation session that covers campus safety, policies and procedures, legal issues, and a general introduction to the university. Adjuncts also now have representation on the Faculty Senate, so that they may not only be kept aware of important policy changes affecting faculty, but also have a voice in those changes. In addition, several departments offer separate, discipline specific adjunct training. Department chairs maintain regular communication with adjuncts via e-mail.
•
: The 2001 team observed that “Cameron University faculty are facing a quandary regarding requirements for scholarship and research.
Discussions must continue taking place within and among departments as to what should be considered the standard for scholarship within each discipline.
Faculty need to take the initiative to make recommendations related to criteria for evaluation to be placed in the Faculty Handbook. It is recommended that in areas such as education, where many of the scholarly activities are tied to collaborations with the public schools, criteria using references such as E.L. Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered be considered for programs that require many clinical activities.” As described above, the Faculty Handbook was substantially revised with respect to faculty evaluation in AY 2003-2004.
At that time, the Faculty Committee, the primary shared governance body involved in the revision process, was given copies of Boyer’s book to review prior to making recommendations regarding criteria for evaluation. As a
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

result of those revisions, departments are responsible for outlining discipline appropriate scholarship expectations for annual evaluation, promotion, and tenure, consistent with the parameters defined in Appendix B of the Faculty
Handbook and subject to review by the VPAA to ensure consistency across disciplines.
•
: The 2001 team recommended that “Cameron
University should consider creating an office of sponsored research to assist faculty with all aspects of proposal development and grants management. It would be desirable if this office worked closely with institutional advancement.”
In 2003, the position of Academic Research Coordinator was created within the Office of Graduate Studies, with the primary responsibility of helping faculty members to identify appropriate external grant opportunities, develop proposals and manage grants. Currently that responsibility lies with the
Director of Academic Research who reports directly to the VPAA.
•
: The 2001 team noted that “the multicultural population at Cameron has increased in the last five years. The multicultural activities on campus have remained the same in nature and number. It would help if all students were required to take a course on diversity as part of their general education requirements. It would also be helpful if multicultural programming could move away from ‘foods, folklore and feasts’ of a culture, to more substantive inclusion of multicultural education in the curriculum. Given the disparity among the cultural diversity of the faculty, staff, administration and students, it would be advantageous to provide cross-cultural sensitivity training sessions for the entire university community.” Over the last ten years, the university has markedly increased its commitment to both curricular and cocurricular multicultural education, as discussed in more detail in Chapter Four.
Major changes to the Cameron University campus and service area have occurred in the following areas:
• Students - Since Fall 2001, total headcount enrollment has increased approximately 20% while there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of military students served.
• Faculty – Increased diversity in race, gender, ethnic origin, and academic preparation and increased opportunities for development.
• State Economic Retrenchment – Limited state appropriations in a time of increased student enrollment.
• Curriculum - The university regularly reviews its curriculum to ensure the pruning of unproductive programs, the creation of new programs in response to constituent demand, and the appropriate curricular alignment of all academic programs. Since the last comprehensive visit, the university has made numerous adjustments to ensure that its academic programs continue to effectively meet the needs of all of its constituents.
• Organizational Changes and Administrative Changes - The university has made multiple administrative changes over the last ten years in order to reduce administrative overhead and increase efficiency in the pursuit of strategic planning goals.
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Self-Study Executive Summary
6
• Physical Facilities - Cameron University has significantly renovated, remodeled, and added to the physical plant with key additions:
• Dorms/Cameron Village/McMahon Center
• Center for Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurial Studies
(CETES)
• Business Building
• McMahon Centennial Complex - Student Union
• Renovations to Athletic Facilities
• Campus Beautification
• Technology - In addition to making significant, targeted changes to its physical facilities over the last ten years, the university has continued to grow its instructional technology, including “smart” classrooms, computer labs, distance learning infrastructure and instructional software. The university implemented a new ERP system, Sungard Banner.
• Off-Campus Learning Sites - In addition to its Lawton campus, Cameron
University maintains learning sites at 12 locations around the state, including
Cameron University-Duncan, Redlands Community College, Rogers State
University, the Truman Education Center at Fort Sill, Oklahoma State
University-Oklahoma City, The University Center at Ponca City, Western
Oklahoma State College and the University of Central Oklahoma. The university also has three additional course locations: Comanche Nation
College, GEO Prison and Great Plains Technology Center.
• Partnerships - Cameron University has a long history of collaboration with both higher education and community partners, and the institution continually seeks new partnerships in order to make the most of available resources and opportunities and reviews the status of existing relationships to ensure their continued appropriateness and efficacy.
• Since 2001, Cameron University has updated its mission statement, enumerated a list of core values and reinstituted a strategic planning process, and its mission documents are now coherently interrelated and publicly articulated in such a way that all of the university’s various constituents understand the university’s mission and overwhelmingly support it. The university thoroughly and consciously integrates the mission into its daily operations, and has made administrative changes as necessary in order to help it better fulfill that mission; it also functions with a level of transparency to the southwest
Oklahoma community that has been enhanced by the ongoing efforts of its
Office of Public Affairs and a strong commitment on the part of its President to public accountability and responsible stewardship, as articulated in the university core values. In addition, the university’s mission documents reflect the institution’s commitment to the diverse constituencies it serves, embracing both the opportunities and the challenges that diversity provides.
• At the same time the university recognizes that it still faces challenges as it seeks to better fulfill its mission, particularly in the areas of communication and faculty diversity. Both focus groups and surveys indicate that university communications have not been as effective as they could, particularly in the areas of policy and procedure, a challenge that the university is currently
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

seeking to address both through AggieAccess and through the reorganization of its Office of Human Resources. The ever-changing nature of federal, state and local laws represents an additional training challenge; copyright laws and their interpretation, for example, seem to be constantly evolving in this electronic era and it is essential that Cameron University keep its faculty and staff trained and provide education to its students to assist them to operate in legal and ethical fashion. The Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs routinely provides training to all faculty and staff regarding legal and ethical issues. The university also continues to face the challenge of recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty that mirrors the diversity of its student population in spite of the development of an Affirmative Action Plan, the active recruitment of a diverse candidate population, and an increase in the number of its international faculty. Aggressive plans to boost faculty salaries and additional screening committee training should yield positive results in this area. The university has also implemented diversity training in order to raise awareness of diversity issues among faculty and staff so that they may better serve the student body.
• Even as the University seeks to address the challenges it faces, it has worked to expand its mission to take advantage of opportunities made available by new technologies and/or identified by careful environmental scanning. The updating of the university’s mission to include distance education reflects the university’s increasing investment in on-line courses and programs, as it tries to better serve many of its constituencies, including active-duty military personnel and working adults. In addition, the university’s commitment to serve a diverse population of learners have led it to work with Fort Sill to develop new educational opportunities to better serve an expected influx of soldiers resulting from the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) recommendations and the educational needs of a U.S. Army facing new challenges around the world, to embrace Reach Higher, and to focus additional resources on the recruitment of traditional aged students, while creating a campus environment attractive and accessible to all learners.
• Over the last ten years, strategic planning has become one of the great strengths of the university. Through systematic planning, implementation and evaluation, the institution has been able to take advantage of new opportunities while maintaining a steady course in trying economic times. The results of
Plan 2008: Preparing for Cameron University’s Second Century are well documented in the Plan 2008 Status Report, and yearly updates on Plan 2013:
Choices for the Second Century indicate that the university is well on its way to achieving many of its current goals.
• State budget cuts over that same ten year period have represented one of the greatest challenges to the university’s ability to carry out its strategic planning goals, forcing the postponement of some initiatives and the refiguring of others. As a result of repeated budget cuts, a student wellness center originally scheduled to open in Spring 2010 will not open until fall of this year and faculty and staff salaries continue to lag behind the state and regional average, making it difficult to recruit and retain a qualified and diverse faculty.
• In spite of the setbacks caused by the reduction in state funding, the university’s recruitment and retention efforts have led to a substantial increase in student www.cameron.edu/selfstudy 7

Self-Study Executive Summary
8 enrollment, which jumped 13% in Fall 2009, helping to offset the latest state cuts with new tuition dollars. In addition the state’s financial retrenchment has encouraged the university to more aggressively court private partners. Many of the university’s recent initiatives have been funded through private donations rather than public dollars, and the University Advancement Office arguably operates more effectively at present than ever before in the institution’s history.
Limited budget has also forced the university to explore partnerships with other institutions that may well bear fruit long after the easing of the current economic climate. Thus, although the university has experienced financial setbacks as it has sought to move forward, its careful planning and its resultant ability to respond to challenges have simultaneously created new opportunities for growth and development.
• In the wake of the 2001 NCA visit, the university has taken important steps to improve its assessment of student learning. All academic and many student services units publicly present annual PQIRs which delineate measurable student learning outcomes, present data on student achievement of those outcomes, and explain how that data have and will be used to drive programmatic changes. In addition, the adoption of the IDEA course evaluation instrument now allows for the unbiased and nationally benchmarked assessment of teaching effectiveness. Cameron University also uses a number of means to recognize and reward effective teaching, many of which are student driven. In addition, many of its student and academic support units have made good use of needs assessment data to improve the services offered by the university.
• Challenges do still remain. While some units very effectively use assessment data to improve student learning, others are still working to effectively translate assessment results into meaningful improvements in student learning. The
IAC continues to fine tune the PQIR process, and the institution as a whole is only beginning to explore viable mechanisms for reporting assessment results to all of its constituents and to the general public. In addition, although much progress has been made on faculty salaries, work to bring salaries at some levels fully into line with those at peer institutions is ongoing and preserving crucial student services in the face of budget cuts is a perennial challenge. Nevertheless with a solid PQIR system in place, the use of external advisory boards increasingly becoming a part of the assessment process, and the university’s nascent participation in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA), the institution is increasingly well poised to support and develop student leaning.
• Cameron University still has work to do regarding the assessment of General
Education; however, Criterion Four is also an area where the institution has made great strides since the last North Central Association-Higher Learning
Commission (NCA-HLC) visit, and has some areas of considerable strength.
Since 2001, the university has implemented a post-tenure review policy that encourages faculty members to continue to grow and develop their professional expertise beyond the point of tenure. It has also expanded its cultural and diversity programming significantly, providing its students with curricular and cocurricular opportunities to become familiar both with issues regarding
American ethnic and racial diversity and with the complexity of globalization.
In addition, the institution commits significant resources to faculty, staff and
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

student scholarship, enabled in part by its extensive endowed lectureship program. A grant web page is currently being developed to help with both internal and external grants. The university also maintains comprehensive policies regarding ethical behavior on the part of its faculty, staff and students, and has instituted the widespread use of SafeAssign, in part as a response to regional and national data regarding the prevalence of academic dishonesty.
• As the university has begun to focus time and resources on the consistent implementation of general education assessment, opportunities for developing a better understanding of the institution’s general education objectives and thus improving the delivery of general education at Cameron University have started to emerge. It is now apparent that one of the issues that has slowed general education initiatives over the last ten years has been lack of a common understanding of general education learning outcomes; within the past six months a General Education Subcommittee has created a rubric defining a consensus understanding of aesthetic appreciation, traditionally one of the more difficult objectives to measure. At the same time, a proposal to reduce the number of general education hours required by the university by eliminating virtually unassessable elective hours is already creating positive changes in
Cameron’s general education program. With continued and persistent effort, the current course of the university’s general education assessment program should allow for a more thoughtful understanding of general education (and of the life-long learning and good citizenship that general education inculcates) on the part of Cameron’s faculty, staff and administration.
• Working with and for the community permeates all aspects of Cameron
University. Because of its long tradition of service to the southwest Oklahoma community, the university has well developed mechanisms for community outreach efforts, and the distributed nature of these efforts across all units, academic and non-academic, contributes significantly to the number and quality of services the university is able to offer its constituents. Over the last several years, Cameron has enhanced its outreach efforts by establishing new units like SwAHEC and by reorganizing and/or better supporting others, including the Office of Public Affairs, the Office of University Advancement and the Office of Alumni Relations. In establishing CETES, the university has also embraced its mission to provide economic leadership for southwest
Oklahoma. In addition, the institution has established new partnerships and revitalized others in order to better serve all of its constituents. Those agreements have been formalized as NCA suggested in 2001, and the university has developed a strong tradition of making both higher education and community partners welcome in its facilities.
• The self-study has also revealed areas for improvement relative to the university’s public service efforts; in particular, and in part because of the close ties between Cameron University and the southwest Oklahoma community, the communication of constituent needs has often been informal.
The university has already begun to shift to more formal and systematic communication with alumni, donors and the media, and it seems likely that its educational outreach efforts will follow suit. In addition, the university has already seen benefits from grant funds providing VISTA volunteers to campus in the areas of student community service and service learning, and given the recent efforts of the OSRHE, service learning is another area in which the www.cameron.edu/selfstudy 9

Self-Study Executive Summary
10 institution has great potential to grow. New programs at Fort Sill may also provide opportunities for Cameron to offer faculty expertise in several areas, including cultural awareness training.
Although the body of the self-study report does not explicitly draw attention to the presence of the Commission’s four cross-cutting themes in its analysis of university operations, it is evident from the data and from the discussion provided that Cameron
University is future-oriented, learning-focused, connected and distinctive.
• Over the last ten years, the university has expanded its strategic planning efforts at all levels in an effort to position both the university as a whole and its diverse programs to seize opportunities that arise and overcome obstacles as necessary. This forward-looking attitude permeates the institution and all of its operations. Even as its mission expresses a commitment to preparing its students for their own futures as productive workers and citizens, the university takes pains to ensure that its comprehensive planning and its regular evaluation of the effectiveness of that planning will allow it to continue to provide a quality education in an atmosphere conducive to learning. Individual academic programs also continually assess their effectiveness in order to make changes that will both improve student learning and ensure that students are not only prepared for the world into which they will graduate, but also provided with a knowledge base and an ability to engage in life-long learning habits that will allow them to grow and keep pace with the needs of an everchanging workplace. In addition, Cameron’s commitment to economic and culture leadership in the region it serves means that it must continually look not only to its own future and that of its students, but to the future of southwest
Oklahoma, as it strives to enhance quality of life for all of its constituents.
• Through all of its planning, Cameron University remains resolutely learningfocused. Cameron’s mission promises quality educational opportunities for all of those it serves, and in pursuit of that mission, the university carefully directs its resources to ensure not only the effective delivery of instruction, but also (more crucially) effective learning on the part of all of its constituents.
Thus, the institution regularly engages in the evaluation and assessment of the learning services it provides in order to ensure that the resources dedicated to student learning produce positive learning outcomes; through PQIRs,
IDEA evaluations, NSSE and ACT surveys, and other internal studies and reports, the institution measures the impact of the instruction it provides on student learning. In addition, the vast majority of its external partnerships and community services are centered around constituent learning of one kind or another; from CETES to summer camps, Cameron provides programs from which constituents can and do learn to enhance their opportunities and their lives.
• The university’s ability to remain learning focused in the face of shrinking budgets has (as has been emphasized throughout this report) been in large part due to the partnerships it has been able to forge, both with other institutions of higher education and with the residents of southwest Oklahoma. One of the university’s great strengths lies in its connectedness to external partners and to the southwest Oklahoma region it serves; from its very inception, the institution has relied upon community partnerships even as southwest Oklahoma has looked to the university to provide educational services and leadership in the
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

region. Today those ties are more important than ever, and the institution has actively sought to expand its community and higher education partnerships in order to maximize the effectiveness of ever-dwindling resources. New partnerships with other institutions such as Redlands Community College,
Rogers State University, and Great Plains Technology Center have allowed the university to expand the range of services it offers within the state while the generosity of the community it serves has led to the radical enhancement of the university infrastructure, including the new student union opened in
Spring 2010, and the expansion of endowed lectureships and other instructional resources.
• Above all, perhaps, as it moves into its second century, Cameron University has a clear and unwavering understanding of itself, of its role in the community it serves, and of its mission. For over one hundred years, Cameron has been committed to providing for its constituents quality educational opportunities that are both affordable and accessible, thereby enhancing the overall quality of life in southwest Oklahoma. In the continued pursuit of that aim, the university has, over the last several years, increased the funding it dedicates to scholarships and tuition waivers in order to offset the rising cost of college education. It has also developed internal textbook and emergency loan programs and partnered with the US military to provide additional assistance to those who need it most. As a result, Cameron graduates carry one of the lowest college debt loads in the nation. Cameron also works to enhance accessibility by offering pre-college leveling courses and dedicating funds to initiatives that seek to improve the success rates in those pre-college courses. At the same time, the university provides the leadership in cultural, economic, and workforce development necessary to enhance local career opportunities for the educated workforce it produces. And yet, as the university also recognizes, none of these initiatives may come at the expense of the quality education that lies at the core of its mission, a quality that the institution assures both by targeting specific programs for educational excellence and by routinely assessing the learning outcomes of all of its academic programs.
Embracing this current self-study process as an opportunity not only to acknowledge the institution’s many strengths and accomplishments, but also to identify ongoing areas for improvement, the university has already begun to implement changes in response to self-study findings. Some adjustments were easily made; others will require time and consideration before the target is finally reached. These findings and responses are described individually throughout the report, but the summary below provides a brief overview of many of the areas addressed.
• Mission and Core Values. Although Cameron has long had a well-articulated mission and set of core values, the self-study determined that they were less visible than was desirable. Mission and core values posters have been hung throughout campus, the campus bookstore distributed bookmarks with the mission and core values to all students purchasing text books, and the mission and core values have been distributed more widely in printed materials.
• Campus Communication. The implementation of AggieAccess has enhanced campus communication by providing a central location for the organization and distribution of information regarding campus activities, policies, announcements and other facets of campus life. The decision to create a separate www.cameron.edu/selfstudy 11

Self-Study Executive Summary
12 channel for campus policies and procedures was made specifically in response to concerns raised in Spring 2009 focus meetings. In addition, the university has recently taken steps to clarify appropriate means of communication for various kinds of campus announcements and has enhanced the ability of the faculty and staff to communicate with students by designating each student’s
Cameron e-mail as that student’s official point of contact.
• Employee Training. Self-study focus groups and surveys revealed that both faculty and staff have felt the need for more training opportunities in some areas and that few faculty and staff were taking advantage of the opportunities that were available. The university has dramatically stepped up its employee training activities over the last year, requiring appropriate individuals among both faculty and staff to undergo training in the areas of health and safety, faculty hiring, emergency management, student worker management, and various modules in Banner and AggieAccess. In addition, in an effort to make it easier for faculty and staff to participate in training, the university has begun to offer some training through AggieAccess.
• Faculty and Staff Remuneration. Cameron University recognizes the importance of offering competitive salaries and benefits to the recruitment of quality faculty and staff, and has worked hard over the last ten years to raise salaries in spite of a difficult economy and the many budget cuts it has recently undergone. As mentioned in Chapter Two of this self-study, the university understands that its salaries have continued to lag behind its peer institution, particularly at the professor level in some disciplines. Over the last year, the institution has continued to take aggressive action on faculty salaries, rolling out the first phase of a program that will gradually increase promotion raises over the next three years. In addition, the university implemented a market adjustment program, raising salaries for many individuals at both the instructor and the professor level. In addition, Cameron has provided two stipend programs since January 2010: one for all classified staff, one for employees making less than $30,000 per year. Cumulatively, these programs have brought the institution close to its goal of achieving parity with its peer institutions.
• General Education. Although the university has regularly collected data assessing various facets of general education over the last ten years, the recognition was made very early in the self-study process that general education was not being held to the same standards of centralized accountability as other campus academic programs, resulting in a new requirement that the general education program, under the leadership of the General Education Committee, present a unified PQIR summarizing student progress on general education outcomes. That change has reaped immediate benefits, with recommendations coming out of the 2010 PQIR for the elimination of unnecessary (and unassessable) elective hours from the general education structure. In addition, the self-study revealed that although the university as a whole provides abundant opportunities for students to become educated members of global society, and many programs and courses assess students’ global awareness, that data is not currently being captured in a form that allows the university to make systematic, centralized decisions about the learning opportunities it provides to its students. That issue will be forwarded to the General Education Committee for consideration during
AY 2010-2011.
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

Taken as a whole, the evidence presented through this self-study demonstrates to all of its various constituents, to the public and to the Higher Learning Commission of the
North Central Association that Cameron University acts in such a way as to meet the criteria for accreditation determined by NCA-HLC. Guided by a mission that reflects the distinctive nature of the population that it serves, the university plans strategically for the future and allocates the resources necessary to fulfill those plans, prioritizing effective teaching, student learning, and the development of a life of learning for all of those it serves, including the southwest Oklahoma community.
The Cameron University Self-Study is available online at http://www.cameron.edu/ selfstudy/2010selfstudy. www.cameron.edu/selfstudy 13

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14
The Criteria for Accreditation are organized under five major headings. Each Criterion has three elements: Criterion Statement, Core Components, and Examples of Evidence.
The Criteria Statements define necessary attributes of an organization accredited by the
Commission. An organization must be judged to have met each of the Criteria to merit accreditation. An organization addresses each Core Component as it presents reasonable and representative evidence of meeting a Criterion. The Examples of Evidence illustrate the types of evidence an organization might present in addressing a Core Component.
The Criteria are intentionally general so that accreditation decisions focus on the particulars of each organization, rather than on trying to make it fit a preestablished mold. The widely different purposes and scopes of colleges and universities demand criteria that are broad enough to encompass diversity and support innovation, but clear enough to ensure acceptable quality. The Criteria Statements and Core Components are presented here. Visit the Commission’s Web site to view the Examples of Evidence.
The organization operates with integrity to ensure the fulfillment of its mission through structures and processes that involve the board, administration, faculty, staff and students.
1a. The organization’s mission documents are clear and articulate publicly the organization’s commitments.
1b. In its mission documents, the organization recognizes the diversity of its learners, other constituencies and the greater society it serves.
1c. Understanding of and support for the mission pervade the organization.
1d. The organization’s governance and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support collaborative processes that enable the organization to fulfill its mission.
1e. The organization upholds and protects its integrity.
The organization’s allocation of resources and its processes for evaluation and planning demonstrate its capacity to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its education, and respond to future challenges and opportunities.
2a. The organization realistically prepares for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trends.
2b. The organization’s resource base supports its educational programs and its plans for maintaining and strengthening their quality in the future.
2c. The organization’s ongoing evaluation and assessment processes provide reliable evidence of institutional effectiveness that clearly informs strategies for continuous improvement.
2d. All levels of planning align with the organization’s mission, thereby enhancing its capacity to fulfill that mission.
The organization provides evidence of student learning and teaching effectiveness that demonstrates it is fulfilling its educational mission.
3a. The organization’s goals for student learning outcomes are
Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary

clearly stated for each educational program and make effective assessment possible.
3b. The organization values and supports effective teaching.
3c. The organization creates effective learning environments.
3d. The organization’s learning resources support student learning and effective teaching.
The organization promotes a life of learning for its faculty, administration, staff and students by fostering and supporting inquiry, creativity, practice and social responsibility in ways consistent with its mission.
4a. The organization demonstrates, through the actions of its board, administrators, students, faculty and staff that it values a life of learning.
4b. The organization demonstrates that acquisition of a breadth of knowledge and skills and the exercise of intellectual inquiry are integral to its educational programs.
4c. The organization assesses the usefulness of its curricula to students who will live and work in a global, diverse and technological society.
4d. The organization provides support to ensure that faculty, students and staff acquire, discover and apply knowledge responsibly.
As called for by its mission, the organization identifies its constituencies and serves them in ways both value.
5a. The organization learns from the constituencies it serves and analyzes its capacity to serve their needs and expectations.
5b. The organization has the capacity and the commitment to engage with its identified constituencies and communities.
5c. The organization demonstrates its responsiveness to those constituencies that depend on it for service.
5d. Internal and external constituencies value the services the organization provides.
• Engages in planning
• Is driven by the mission
• Understands social and economic change
• Focuses on the future of constituents
• Integrates new technology
• Assesses student learning
• Supports learning
• Supports scholarship
• Creates the capacity for lifelong learning
• Supports organizational learning www.cameron.edu/selfstudy 15

Self-Study Executive Summary
• Serves the common good
• Serves constituents
• Creates a culture of service
• Collaborates
• Engages in healthy internal communication
• Has an unambiguous mission
• Appreciates diversity
• Is accountable
• Is self-reflective
• Is committed to improvement
16 Cameron University Self-Study Executive Summary
Cameron University
2800 West Gore Boulevard
Lawton, Oklahoma 73505 www.cameron.edu