WASC Committee
Meeting Notes
March 14, 2013
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Haak Boardroom - 4115
Members Present: Shirley Armbruster, Nagy Bengiamin, Bryan Berrett, Michael Caldwell, Carolyn Coon, Michelle Den
Beste, Xuanning Fu, Tracey Garza, Bob Harper, Asao Inoue, Andrew Lawson, Jane Magee, Jim Marshall, Maxine
McDonald, Scott Moore, Bob Murphy, Arun Nambiar, Dennis Nef, Philip Neufeld, Jim Prince, Chuck Radke, Melanie
Ram, Rebecca Raya-Fernandez, David Schecter, Dave Tyckoson, Terence Wan, Lynnette Zelezny, & Laura Alcantar
Members Absent: Thomas Boeh, Sharon Brown-Welty, Jose Diaz, Daniel Griffin, Arthur Montejano, and Fariborz
Tehrani
Call to Order: 10:03 a.m.
I.
II.
Announcements
a. Welcome new member – Angel Sanchez, Director, Office of Institutional Effectiveness
b. Provost Covino named WASC Commissioner
c. Carol Gittens Site Visit – May 1-2, 2013 update
d. Jim Prince accepted to Leadership Assessment
e. WASC Sub-committee Open Forums
i. Mon, March 18, 1-2:30 pm in HML 3212
ii. Thurs, March 21, 2-3:30 pm in the Renaissance Room, UC 123
f. Box.com – everyone should have received a box.com and if you did not received one P. Neufeld will be
happy to present at the subcommittee meetings.
Review February 13, 2013 meeting notes
Meeting notes were approved.
III.
Undergraduate Retention/Graduation Rate Data update – X. Fu
X. Fu walked the committee through the handouts. Everyone received all of these handouts electronically. The
color handouts are the summaries requested by WASC and are brought to this committee for comments and
review. Our best matching campus peer for incoming freshman is CSU Northridge. One of the uniqueness we
have is that our students are different from other campus, specifically our Asian students. We compare favorably
among our peer campuses. A. Lawson asked the committee to look at this information since it is due to WASC
this semester.
IV.
Subcommittee Reports:
a. Website – J. Marshall
 Review home page – President’s message – The President’s message has been updated.
 Website Feedback - http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/wasc/feedback.html
Thank you to A. Nambiar for getting this feedback form done in a day. This will be a place for
people to submit comments as we move along in our accreditation.
b. Meaning, Quality & Integrity of the Degree – A. Lawson
 Review Institutional Learning Outcomes
Committee Chair A. Lawson presented the most recent Institutional Learning Outcomes to this
committee. This document has been sent to the campus community to review and expect to
discuss this further at the forums. Please feel free to join us at next week’s forums.
c. Core Competency – X. Fu
This subcommittee will be having two forums next week. This subcommittee is focusing on
writing as the core competency to report to WASC. The subcommittee is supposed to submit
ideas on data collection to X. Fu by tomorrow March 15th. He will share a draft plan this weekend
and will be presented at the forums. One of the ways that the subcommittee is contemplating to
use to collect data for writing is ePortfolio.
V.
Campus Communication Plan
L. Zelezny wanted us to start thinking about our communication plan. A member mentioned that our website
looks really good, however; people don’t know about it. P. Neufeld suggested a paper website to send to everyone
and point them to the website. Another member suggested adding a note in the Collegian to let the campus know
about our accreditation. S. Armbruster will work with A. Montejano to submit something via the Collegian. A
suggestion was made to have the WASC link in the Fresno State home page needs to link directly to the WASC
accreditation page (www.fresnostate.edu/academics/wasc/) A. Lawson requested that the website subcommittee
would be willing to take on as the communication plan for WASC accreditation. S. Armbruster is an expert in
communications. The task for the website subcommittee would be to get a communication plan.
VI.
Institutional Report – A. Lawson
It is time to start thinking about the institutional report. A. Lawson took some time to discuss the sections of the
report. Those areas include: Introduction, Compliance with WASC Standards and Federal Regulations, Degree
Programs, Educational Quality, Student Success, Quality Assurance and Improvement, Sustainability, InstitutionSpecific Theme (optional), and Conclusion. He asked the committee to take some time to review the penultimate
draft handbook on page 25. The plan is to assign members to each section by the end of the semester. The final
institutional report is from 50-70 pages.
VII.
Annual Report update – L. Alcantar
L. Alcantar called WASC to inquiry information regarding the institution’s annual report. WASC informed us that
we should receive instructions by the end of the month.
VIII.
IX.
X.
WASC Workshop (offsite review details) – L. Alcantar
This workshop is designed to meet with WASC to get us started on the offsite review details no date selected at
this time.
Upcoming Workshop:
a. April 9 – 12 ~ WASC Academic Resource Conference at San Diego, CA – B. Berrett, S. Elrod, A.
Lawson, D. Nef, J. Prince, D. Tyckoson, L. Zelezny
b. May 3 ~ The Meaning, Quality, and Integrity of the Degree Workshop at Honolulu, Hawaii – A. Inoue, A.
Lawson, L. Zelezny
Next Meeting: Thurs, April 24th, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., Haak Center Boardroom
Meeting adjourned: 10:58 am